Untitled Sermon

Main Point - All Humanity is Ruined by Sin

English Standard Version Psalm 14

14 TO THE CHOIRMASTER. OF DAVID.

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.

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?

5  There they are in great terror,

for God is with the generation of the righteous.

6  You would shame the plans of the poor,

but the LORD is his refuge.

7  Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!

When the LORD restores the fortunes of his people,

let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.

Psalm 8 - Psalm 14 are the bookends of a small section of the Psalms that deals with the nature of humanity.

English Standard Version Psalm 8

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings

and crowned him with glory and honor.

“crowned him [MANKIND] with glory and honor

Literally, we are the image bearers of God

then you get to chapter 14 and realize that mankind has forsaken that glory and dishonored God through disobedience and sin.

The truth of Psalm 14 is so important, that God repeats the same concepts with only a few minor changes in Psalm 53.

English Standard Version Psalm 53

53 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.

Paul quotes Psalm 14 in the Romans 3:10-12 to prove that all have sinned (Jews & Gentiles)

This Psalm breaks down into four easy words: Rejection, Inspection, Miscalculation & Salvation

Rejection

English Standard Version Psalm 14

1  The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”

They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;

there is none who does good.

“Fool” (HB: nabal) - the man who has no perception of ethical and religious claims

Francis Brown, Samuel Rolles Driver, and Charles Augustus Briggs, Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), 614.

Ancient Atheism is not the same as today’s philosophical atheism. Philosophical atheism denies the existence of any supreme being. What David has in mind here is not those who say, “there is no god,” rather he is dealing with those who had abandoned the true God for idolatry, which is really no god at all. It is the fool who doesn’t recognize the one true God.

This foolishness leads the sinner down a dangerous path:

“They are corrupt” (HB: hishitu) - to spoil or ruin

This corruption is infectious and will pervert others too.

“They do abominable deeds” (HB: hitibu) - rejected

The internal spoiling of corruption leads them to do things that are rejected (abominable)

“There is none who does good” - Yes, this even includes you.

Russian poet Turgenev said, “I do not know the heart of a bad man is like, but I do know what the heart of a good man is like, and it is terrible.”

Inspection

English Standard Version Psalm 14

2  The LORD 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 turned aside; together they have become corrupt;

there is none who does good,

not even one.

This is not David’s conclusion, rather this is God’s determination after inspecting all humanity.

“Any who understand” that stands juxtaposed with “the fool”

There is a strong relationship between verse 2 and the fall. The Hebrew word for man is “Adam.” So God looks down from Heaven on the children of Adam and sees that they are just like their father. This is the same concept as God “coming down” to the first Adam and inspecting what they had done.

What does He find?

ALL have turned aside

TOGETHER they have become ruined / corrupt

NONE does good

NOT EVEN ONE

Miscalculation

English Standard Version Psalm 14

4  Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers

who eat up my people as they eat bread

and do not call upon the LORD?

5  There they are in great terror,

for God is with the generation of the righteous.

6  You would shame the plans of the poor,

but the LORD is his refuge.

“MY PEOPLE” - this is an add phrase. The whole Psalm has leveled all of humanity to the same depraved state. None righteous. No one does good. All turned aside. Yet, God has people that are His?

Paul talks about this same principle in Romans 5:6, 8

English Standard Version Chapter 5

6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

English Standard Version Chapter 5

8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Salvation

English Standard Version Psalm 14

7  Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!

When the LORD restores the fortunes of his people,

let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.