The Fool Says in His Heart
Notes
Transcript
Handout
To the choirmaster: according to Mahalath. A Maskil of David.
1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity; there is none who does good.
2 God looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.
3 They have all fallen away; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.
4 Have those who work evil no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon God?
5 There they are, in great terror, where there is no terror! For God scatters the bones of him who encamps against you; you put them to shame, for God has rejected them.
6 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion! When God restores the fortunes of his people, let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.
Pray
A few weeks ago, God began to impress Psalm 53 on my heart. I’m learning that when God speaks through a passage of Scripture, that is my cue to get to work - he’s doing something and is preparing me in the process.
I was doing a reading plan that has you read five Psalms per day: whatever day of the month it is, you read that Psalm and add 30 for each of the other four. This day was Psalms 23; 53; 83; 113; 143. I had just read Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd.” It’s a beautiful Psalm all of us know - you may even have memorized it.
Then, when I turned to Psalm 53, I was struck by the contrast. These Psalms show us two very different individuals with dramatically different outcomes. So, I want us to take some time tonight to do a side-by-side comparison; a “before-and-after” if you will.
I want us first to consider a question:
What is a fool?
Verse 1 gives us a short but vivid picture of the fool:
1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity; there is none who does good.
When I read this verse a few weeks ago, I could not let it go. It hounded me. God has a way of sometimes making his Word stick to you, like those little seeds in the woods that grab your shoes and pants like velcro. You can’t shake them off, you can’t run them off, you have to slowly pull each one off one-at-a-time. That’s what God does when you take walks in the woods - you should always end up bringing some of the woods home with you.
I used to think this verse was talking about people who outright reject God, like atheists or devil-worshippers or something like that. My thinking was, “they say there is no God because they really hate God. That makes them fools.”
Okay, as far as that goes, that may be true. But let’s travel back in time to around 1015 B.C. That’s about when David might have written this Psalm, approximately. In that day, there were nations surrounding Israel with all kinds of gods. There were the Asheras and the Baals, Molech and Marduk, and Chemosh and Dagan - you could make a whole song of the false gods! The Egyptians has dozens of gods, as did the Babylonians, Assyrians, and every other culture. One of the reasons for Israel’s conquest of the promised land were the iniquities of all the “-ites:” the Hittites, Amorites, Jebusites, Termites, and all the rest worshipped god after god after god.
It was so prevalent, this worship of multiple gods, that people were afraid that they would miss a god and pay dearly. Listen to part of a Prayer to Every God:
O Lord, my transgressions are many; great are my sins.
O my god, (my) transgressions are many; great are (my) sins.
O my goddess, (my) transgressions are many; great are (my) sins.
O god whom I know or do not know, (my) transgressions are many; great are (my) sins;
O goddess whom I know or do not know, (my) transgressions are many; great are (my) sins.
The transgression which I have committed, indeed I do not know;
The sin which I have done, indeed I do not know.
The forbidden thing which I have eaten, indeed I do not know;
The prohibited (place) on which I have set foot, indeed I do not know.
The lord in the anger of his heart looked at me; (30)
The god in the rage of his heart confronted me;
When the goddess was angry with me, she made me become ill.
The god whom I know or do not know has oppressed me;
The goddess whom I know or do not know has placed suffering upon me.
People from other cultures thought that the Israelites were foolish for only having one god - literally no one in that part of the world would be so crazy to think that no god exists at all!
I don’t think David is talking here about atheists. And I also don’t think he’s talking about people who don’t care about God, either. Notice carefully where the fool says “there is no God:” he says it in his heart. I am convinced that David is talking about people who know about God, yet reject him anyway.
He met a man like this before, and I believe that man is the inspiration of this Psalm. Psalm 53 is not given a specific context within David’s life, but Psalms 52 and 54 are. Psalm 52 tells us of the time when Doeg, the Edomite, sent word to Saul of David’s presence in Ahimelech’s household. That story is recounted in 1 Samuel 22. That’s when David and his men are given the bread of the presence by the priest Abiathar while they are fleeing from Saul. Psalm 54 then is written during the events in 1 Samuel 26, when another group tattles on David’s location to Saul.
One of the events between 1 Samuel 23 and 26 occurs in chapter 25 - the story of Nabal and Abigail. David and his men had protected the shepherds of Nabal, so David asks for food for his men as a return for their protection. Nabal refuses. David is so mad, he instructs his men to prepare to attack Nabal, but Abigail wisely interjects, offering humble apologies and provisions for David’s men. David calls off the attack, Nabal ends up dying shortly thereafter, and David ends up taking Abigail as a wife.
No verse describes Nabal better than 1 Samuel 25:17:
17 Now therefore know this and consider what you should do, for harm is determined against our master and against all his house, and he is such a worthless man that one cannot speak to him.”
Nabal is worthless. He is a fool. He is so foolish, his name literally means, “fool.” It’s the same word used in verse 1: the nabal says in his heart, “there is no God.” The fool is not someone who refuses to know God - the fool is the one who knows him, but rejects him anyway.
Now, do you see why this verse will not let me go? It’s not talking about someone who “doesn’t know any better.” It’s talking about us. You see, any time we reject God and try to control our own lives, we are fools.
When we hate someone instead of loving them, we say in our hearts, “there is no God.”
When we respond in anger instead of in love, we say in our hearts, “there is no God.”
When we lust after someone or covet something that belongs to another, we say in our hearts, “there is no God.”
When we act like we’re “all that and a bag of chips” instead of being humble, we say in our hearts, “there is no God.”
When we allow our comforts to dictate the limits of our obedience to God, we say in our hearts, “there is no God.”
When we praise God with the same lips that we curse our neighbors, we say in our hearts, “there is no God.”
When we take pride in “our accomplishments” and forget God’s blessings that made them possible in the first place, we say in our hearts, “there is no God.”
When we ask God to give us what we want, then complain when we don’t get it (immediately or even ever), we say in our hearts, “there is no God.”
When we love recognition from people more than the pleasure of God, we say in our hearts, “there is no God.”
When we ask God to “bring more people to church” and refuse to invite people to church, we say in our hearts, “there is no God.”
When we say things like, “that’s what we pay you to do, preacher,” we say in our hearts, “there is no God.”
When we think more of ourselves than of our neighbors, or more of our neighbors than of Christ, we say in our hearts, “there is no God.”
Do you get it, now? We are the fools. Whenever we do it our way rather than God’s, we are the fools who say in our hearts, “there is no God.”
Psalm 53 doesn’t just convict us of foolishness. It shows us just how bad things are:
2 God looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.
3 They have all fallen away; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.
When God takes inventory of us, he finds that we are completely corrupted. It’s bad enough when one or two of us are off, or when a whole group is bad but the rest are okay. The other day at work, I opened a tray of buns. They were all hard as a rock - somehow a hole had gotten torn in the bag and the air made every single bun stale. I couldn’t save any of them - they were all bad. I had to throw all the buns away.
That’s God’s assessment of all of humanity. Every single one of us is ruined. Thank God he doesn’t have to throw us all away - but every single one of us needs to be redeemed. We are all fallen, all corrupted; we all do evil. Every one of us is a fool, and left to our own ways would earn damnation.
It’s so bad, verse 4 asks a sharp question:
4 Have those who work evil no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon God?
In other words, are you evil-doers dumb? Don’t you know anything?!? Yes, David, we are all that foolish.
Bear with me here: I know this is all bad, but we need to see the end result:
5 There they are, in great terror, where there is no terror! For God scatters the bones of him who encamps against you; you put them to shame, for God has rejected them.
The fool rejects God, and in the end he is rejected by God. He is in terror because God is terrifying to those who reject him. It reminds me of Jonah - the prophet who, while he ran away from God, had the audacity to claim:
9 And he said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”
What a fool! Throughout the book, Jonah does not fear God.
Pagan sailors trust God better than the prophet does.
The great fish serves God better than the prophet does.
The Ninevites honor God better than the prophet does.
The worm obeys God better than the prophet does.
Church, we must be very careful that we are not fools who say in our hearts, “there is no God.” We must not be like Jonah: claiming to fear God and yet refusing his commands and rejecting his presence. The end result of foolishness is unwarranted terror, utter destruction, and ultimate rejection.
That is the “before”. Now, flip over to Psalm 23 and let’s consider the “after.” Look at verses 2-6:
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.
3 He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Now this is completely different! There is no terror here in Psalm 23: this person is eating and frolicking through the fields in peace! Rather than trying to find his own wicked and corrupted path, this person is being led in righteous paths.
There is no destruction here: even though the way passes through a deep valley of grave danger, he is not afraid. Even though he endures discipline through the rod and correction in the staff, he is not ruined. This person is anointed and has a trail of goodness and mercy following behind them like the train of a wedding dress!
There is no rejection here: this person enjoys the provision of good food even among his foes; he has the anointing of oil that covers his head and demonstrates that he is welcome. This person even dwells with God in God’s own house - forever!
Do you see the dramatic difference?!?
If we were running a commercial ad for a diet product, I can think of no better contrast than these two men. The man in Psalm 53 is nothing like the man in Psalm 23. So, what makes that big of a difference? What can make the fool of Psalm 53 into the blessed man of Psalm 23?
1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
The difference is what he does with God. The fool rejects God; the blessed man follows God. There is relationship in Psalm 23 - just as the shepherd loves and cares for the sheep, so God loves and cares for you.
I want us to do something a little different for Wednesday night: I want to offer an invitation of sorts. We’re all fools in some way - there are issues and problems that every one of us has where we reject God’s correction or discipline. There are corners in our hearts that we have blocked him from cleaning out. We all need to confess our foolishness and ask God to shepherd us in those places.
So I want to invite you to confess. Admit to God where you’re a fool and give him control. We’re going to spend a few minutes in prayer, after which I will close out the prayer. Let’s pray…