O Come: All You Unfaithful

Sermon Introduction

Last week, we finished off our sermon series in the Old Testament on a bit of a sad note

The Israelites after 70 years of Babylonian Exle were finally allowed to return to the Promised Land

They were able to rebuild Jerusalem and especially their Temple

And yet, as we learned last week from Malachi, the Lord had several disputes with the Israelites

Chief of which was their halfhearted worship in their rebuilt temple

Likely stemming from the fact that the Glory of the God was no longer presentin the temple

Haggai 2:3 “3 ‘Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes?”

And so this is how the Old Testament ends

Instead of a joyful return to the Promised Land and a joyful return to worshipping Yahweh in his Temple, the Old Testament ends

And we enter a period in Biblical History called the Intertestamental Period, which was a 400 year period where God was silent...

No new revelation, no new prophets, which is why there’s this gap between Malachi and the Gospels…

Although, I should mention, there are versions of the Bible used by other Christian traditions that contain a section we call the Apocrypha

These books that we don’t considered to be inspired by God, and so that’s why we don’t include them in our Bibles

But to be fair, those who include them in their Bibles, like the Roman Catholic Church, also don’t consider these books to be inspired, at least not to the same extent as the rest of the Old Testament, which is why they typically call them the Deterocanonical Books

And anyway, even these books themselves, don’t really add anything to Redemption History

For example, one of the books, Tobit, is a parable. It’s a fictional story of about a Jewish exile who was living in Ninevah

And then there are the Maccabees, which tells the story of a brief Jewish uprising in the 160s BC, against the Selucid Empire, which is yet another Empire that controlled Israel

So if you’re keeping track… Israel, the Northern Kingdom, was conquerd by the Assyrian Assyrian Empire

Then the Assyrian Empire was conquered by the Babylonians, which was then able to conquer Judah, the Southern Kingdom

Then there was the Persian Empire

Then, the Greek Empire, established by Alexander the Great

And then, the Selucid Empire was the division of the Greek Empire that retained control of a large portion of the Middle East after Alexander the Great died

And so, for those 400 years, God is silent, which was probably perfectly fine of the type of person that Psalm 14 was talking about...

Psalm 14:1–2 “1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none who does good. 2 The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.”

Now, to be clear, this Psalm does not specifically refer to the Intertestemental Period… What I’m saying is that 400 years of God’s Silence would probably have been welcomed by those who would deny God, am I right?

New Atheism

I remember, when I was in college, New Atheisim was all the rage...

You know what I’m talking about, right?

Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris...

These popular figures who basically made Atheism mainstream, writing books, giving speeches, appearing in talk shows...

I remember getting into these epic debates online… In those early days when Facebook was still limited to just people with University email addresses, it was, not surprisingly, full of University students

Who read the book God is Not Great cover to cover… and...

Who had a thing to say about those evil intollerant Christians...

And in those times, I would sometimes use this verse in Psalm, sometimes almost as a kind of insult… “Haha, you’re a fool because you don’t believe in God!” As if they really care about what the Bible says… when they don’t believe in God...

There are two problems with how I used to conceive of this verse… and which how many of us probably read and understand this verse today...

First of all, with our understand of this statement…

“There is No God”

Now for us today, how we would understand this naturally is to refer to Atheists… Those who deny the existence of God...

The problem with that of course is that this modern concept of Atheism did not exist in the Biblical times...

There were no Atheists… in fact it was quite the opposite… people believed in many different gods...

Practically anything can be gods for ancient people… The sun, nature, animals… There would have been gods everywhere in t he ancient world...

And so, this idea of a naturalistic, “science based” denial of the existance of God would have been ridiculous to them…

In fact Romans consifered early Christians to be atheists, because we Christians don’t have idols… we don’t have a physical representation of our God to worship…

And so, in Psalm 14, a fool saying “There is no God” is not a denial of God’s existence, but rather a desire to act and to live their lives as if there is no God...

And this makes complete sense when you consider the rest of the verses 1 and 2..

Psalm 14:1–2 “...They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none who does good.” and obviously… they do not “seek after God.”

And the word that this Psalm uses to describe this type of person is “Fool”

Which brings us to the second misunderstanding and misconception about this verse...

Fool

That is, this idea of a “fool” meaning “someone who is dumb, who is stupid”…

And so, that’s why I used to think of it as an insult… Haha, you crazy atheists, you’re all dumb… even with your ivy league education...

The problem with that of course is that’s not what the Bible is referring to at all!

In that idea of a “fool”, the opposite is “smart”

But the Bible’s opposite for “Fool” is… “Wise”

And how do you become wise, according to the Bible?

Proverbs 1:7 “7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

There’s that word again, right? “Fools despise wisdom and instruction...”

A fool is, as we had already discussed earlier… someone who wishes to act as if there is no God...

And the result of that is, basically, immorality.

Which lead us to the next two verses in Psalm 14...

Psalm 14:3–4 “3 They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one. 4 Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread and do not call upon the Lord?”

First thing I want to note here is that word in Verse 4… “Knowledge”....

How do we receive knowledge again, according to Proverbs 1:7? By, fearing the Lord...

That’s what knowledge and wisdom in the Bible refers to…

You can be a genius… Richard Dawkins is a scientist… he has a Ph.D… he was a professor at University of Oxford. He is what this world would consider to be very smart...

And yet, according to the Bible, he does not have True Knowledge… since knowledge comes through fear of the Lord...

None Righteous

Ok, moving a little bit backward… Psalm 14:3 “3 They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.”

If this sounds familiar to you, that’s because this line was quoted, almost verbatim by the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans

Romans 3:9–11 “9 What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 10 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God.”

Some have said that Paul is basically preaching from Psalm 14 in the early chapters of Romans...

And so what Paul writes there, especially in Chapter 1, really encapsulates the picture that I am trying to paint for you about the fools who want to live as if there was no God...

No Atheists

Because here’s the thing, just as there were really no atheists in ancient times… there really are no atheists today...

Oh, the new Atheists will vehemently disagree...

No… We have science… we have evolution by natural selection… We’ve evolved beyond those primitive supersitions about god...

And yet the Bible is clear… there is an imprint of God in our hearts and minds...

We may choose to act as if there were no God… but deep down, inside, we know there is...

Romans 1:20 “20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”

The need for God is made clear in all creation… clear enough that there is no excuse… No one will be able to come before the Throne of God and say… “God, I just didn’t know!”

It’s not possible.. “1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” that’s what Psalm 19:1 says

No one can claim ignorance because God has made himself clearly known to everyone...

What they’ve really done is rejected God… and continuing on with Romans 1, we see the result of this rejection...

Romans 1:21 “21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

Despite a knowledge of God, they did not honor God… they didn’t worship God as they should… and so, their foolish hearts were darkened

And no we’re not talking about the Steve Perry song...

We’re talking about rejection of wisdom… a rejection of God… And two things happen when people reject God...

Hearts Are Darkened

First, as we already saw in this verse, peoples hearts are darkened...

John 3:19–20 “19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.”

2 Timothy 3:2–4 “2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,”

Here’s the thing though… with this rejection of God… these people need to redirect their worship somewhere else...

Counterfeit Gods

Romans 1:22–23 “22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.”

THESIS: "We think that idols are bad things, but that is almost never the case. The greater the good, the more likely we are to expect that it can satisfy our deepestn eeds and hopes. Anything can serve as a counterfeit god, especially the very best things in life."

DEFINITION: "A counterfeit god is anything so central and essential to your life that, should you lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living. An idol has such a controlling position in your heart that you can spend most of your passion and energy, your emotional and financial resources, on it without a second thought."

Jesus draws us to Himself

We have no hope of ever coming to God

John 12:32–33 “32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 33 He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.”

Matthew 11:28–30 “28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.””