July13thamSermonTXT
17 July 2008
CAMBRAY SERMON SUNDAY 13 JULY 2008 pmPSALM 14 ‘When God is left out’ Psalm 14 (Page 549 in church Bible)
This Psalm needs particular care. In some ways it’s unusual. Psalm 53 is almost identical to this one. Presumably Psalm 14 was used in Hebrew worship in synagogue and temple, but it doesn’t seem directly addressed to God. Partly it seems to teach or state how things are e.g. v1 ‘The fool says in his heart “There is no God”’ and the statement at end of v1 ‘there is no-one who does good’, repeated at end of v3.
At the same time there are elements of lament here, reflection, sadness and regret e.g. v4 ‘Will evildoers never learn?
The nearest we get to direct praise of God or prayer to God is v7 ‘Oh that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion’ – this is a wish for better days, a deep longing for the Lord to save and restore his people.
This Psalm shows that it is legitimate to reflect on the world in God’s presence. It is ok to consider how things are. This is a Psalm of David. We don’t know the historical context, but after pondering the situation he saw in the society of his day, inspired by God, David wrote this Psalm.
It’s clear in the New Testament that Paul the missionary knew that what was sung in worship was directed at the congregation as well as to God. In Ephesians 5:19 he said ‘Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord.’ I’m grateful to Judith Godsell for the time she gives to suggest hymns and songs relevant to the theme for worship services at Cambray, themes that usually come from the Bible passage. Hopefully we learn when the scriptures are explained but we also learn from what we sing, so selection is very important and Judith does a fine job in this.
Through what we sing during our worship services, we teach each other, as well as sing to the Lord. So, truth is declared in this psalm, even if it doesn’t seem directly addressed to God. With that in mind, let’s look at Psalm 14.
There is no-one who does good (verses 1-3)
Verse 1 ‘The fool says in his heart “There is no God”.’ Some may assert strongly and publicly that there is no God. Others aren’t so outspoken but they live as if there is no God. The way they live shows they’re leaving God out of the reckoning – it’s a practical atheism, even if not a public statement.
Note, the fool says in his heart “There is no God” i.e. at heart he has rejected God; at the core of his being he has said ‘No’ to God.
What are some of the consequences when God is left out?
‘They are corrupt’ v1, ‘they have together become corrupt’ v3. NEB says they ‘are rotten to the core’.
‘Their deeds are vile’ also in verse 1. What they have done is ‘abominable’ says English Standard Version and the New King James Version. One consequence of rejecting God is that selfishness grows and moral life easily and quickly degenerates into terrible behaviour.
Why is it that some say ‘No’ to God? Some do so to try to convince themselves they will never be judged for their rejection of God and their vile deeds. While their conscience speaks to them, the thought of being judged by God for their abominable deeds is terrifying, so they feel their only hope of escape is if there is no God at all.
David knew how God responds to all this: v2
The Lord looks down to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.
And v3 says what the Lord finds : ‘All have turned aside ..’
The one who says in his heart “There is no God” is a fool v1. That is God’s description, God’s judgment of them. In the community, those who leave out God may be powerful and wealthy, but in God’s view they are fools.
The fool may not be someone who lacks intelligence, but he or she is someone who lives without God. They may be serious people; but they’ve seriously decided to live without God and that is foolish; it is to be out of touch with reality.
The Lord was not looking to see if there were any who had intelligence, but for ‘any who understand’ v2, and to have understanding one has to take account of God, not leave him out. The Lord was looking in effect to see if there were any wise but he found only fools.
As God exists, to work hard to deny his existence, is foolish.
Verses 1-3 are reminiscent of Genesis 6:5-13 (page 
The general assessment was that corruption, evil, violence and wickedness were rife and human hearts were inclined towards evil not towards God.
The holy God reacts to all this and in the end brings destruction. But, Gen 6:8-9.
A few bucked the trend. Despite the widespread evil, Noah and his family were different; they were blameless.
What are we to say about the situation in David’s time?
Psalm 14:3 says ‘All have turned aside’. That is, they had some awareness of God but turned away from him. Were there not any who were different? Were there none who, like Noah, were righteous and walked with God?
Well, Psalm 14: 5 says ’God is present in the company of the righteous’. Who are they? They are ‘my people’ v4. In other words, the only exceptions to the widespread evil generally found, is when God rescues some, makes them his people and begins to change them into better people.
Paul’s letter to the Christians at Rome is the Bible’s fullest commentary on all this:
Romans 1:18-22, 28-32. And in chapter 3 Paul quotes from Psalm 14 – read Romans 3:9-12.
It may well be that when Jews first used Psalm 14 in their worship, it referred to specific groups of people or rulers of people who at that time rejected God and opposed God’s people. Paul in Romans makes it perfectly clear that it refers to the whole human race; Jews and Gentiles are all sinners. That is very clear in Romans 3:9.
Back to Psalm 14 !
Will evildoers never learn? (verses 4-6)
V4 Those who are evil by choice and habit, if they carry on like that, will never learn. They trouble God’s people as easily and frequently as most eat bread; daily they do so. They persist in not calling on God; they persist in opposing God’s people.
V5 They are overwhelmed with dread or terror. Why? Answer is in last part of v5: ‘for God is present in the company of the righteous.’ Because God was with the righteous, evildoers knew they were left out. And, they saw the righteous as a threat. It was risky to oppose them, as God was with them!
Also, though evildoers try to convince themselves they can
escape judgment, sometimes what they try to keep at the back of their minds comes to the fore and they fear God and his judgment, and rightly so, for they can sink so low as to try to make things even worse for the poor. Verse 6 says ‘You evildoers abuse and exploit the poor.’ “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” said Lord Acton in 1887. Evildoers, said david inmthis Psalm, had no sympathy for the poor. Evildoers take advantage of them in their weakness, rather than help them.
What were or are ‘the plans of the poor’? v6 They might be to better themselves, to get themselves out of the poverty in which they seem trapped. But more likely, the plans of the poor are to depend on God, perhaps partly because they have no alternative – they are powerless to change their situation by themselves.
Do you see how low rejecting God has got to? Reject God and install yourself in his place, and you are wide open to temptations – to use your power, if you have it, in terrible ways, including trampling on the poor. Belief in God who has set moral standards and who will certainly judge people, can help to restrain people from the worst kind of atrocities of which human beings are capable. Throw off restraint and terrible abuse and cruelty can follow.
The righteous of v5 and the poor of v6 may be the same people, for recognising one’s spiritual poverty can lead people to admit their bankruptcy, materially and spiritually. Jesus said ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ (Matthew 5:3) The poor are blessed because they depend on God, and God the king is with them and is their security.
When evildoers see others depending on God, they can respond in various ways. We’ve already seen that they can feel annoyed and threatened, for God is with the righteous and poor. Evildoers know that, and know God is not with them. What a rebuke that is to the evildoers! The God whose very existence they deny, is active, supporting those who do call on the Lord. Another response can be envy – it’s alright for you! The Lord is your refuge (end v6).
And there can be self pity. But it does them no good – they have added guilt upon guilt. They leave God out of their life, they do not do good, they oppose God’s people, they abuse the poor and when they suspect they will face God’s judgment and punishment, they don’t call on the Lord for mercy but they continue to turn away from him. Will evildoers never learn?
In which group do you belong? What description best fits? Evildoers? The fool, for dispensing with God? Or my people, the righteous, the poor?
Oh that salvation would come! (verse 7)
First, some comments about the names in this verse. Jacob was given the new name ‘Israel’ after wrestling with God during one night, when he was alone, except God was with him. The name Israel also became the name for Jacob’s descendants and so for God’s chosen people. So Israel can refer to Jacob himself but more often refers to the people of God.
‘Zion’ sometimes means the whole city of Jerusalem and sometimes the area where the temple was. Zion symbolises the presence of God, so to long for salvation to come out of Zion was to recognise it could only come from God himself.
Now let’s attend a little more closely to the meaning and application of the verse.
God’s people, sadly and painfully aware of the hostility of evil fools, longed for God to save them, to deliver them. For, it is not pleasant to be a besieged minority, ridiculed and under attack.
But there may be a deeper reason why some of those singing this psalm, include verse 7 and mean it.
As they’ve considered those who leave God out, they feel uncomfortable, for they realise how easy it is to believe in God when worshipping with others but outside to live without him, as if there is no God and no judgment to come. Or as they’ve pondered v6 they wonder if they’ve sometimes made things more difficult for the poor; they may come to loathe themselves for such selfishness and neglect of the poor. So they proclaim, for themselves ‘Oh that salvation would come’ v7.
The verses continues: When the Lord restores, and they are no longer persecuted by evildoers, ‘let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!’ The second sentence of v7 starts ‘When the Lord restores the fortunes of his people, suggesting the Lord’s people need restoring, perhaps because they were being hounded or had allowed distance between them and God. It is possible both to rejoice at being God’s people and at times be acutely aware of our failings and shortcomings and recognise the need for our ongoing repentance and for us to be restored. That is, to move from only saying others lack understanding and don’t seek God, to saying my understanding is not what it should be and I don’t seek God enough – I need God’s salvation every day. Then we may recommit ourselves not to leaving God out, but to including God in our aims and attitudes, our behaviour, our decisions, our finances, our leisure, our moral convictions, our political views, our relationships, our thinking.
Thankfully, through NT eyes we see not only human sin and corruption but that God’s deliverance came through Christ. We have joy, because salvation has come, in Christ. Here are two verses from Horatius Bonar’s 19th century communion hymn that starts ‘Here, O my Lord I see thee face to face:
Mine is the sin, but Thine the righteousness:
Mine is the guilt, but Thine the cleansing blood;
Here is my robe, my refuge, and my peace –
Thy blood, Thy righteousness, O Lord my God.
Feast after feast thus comes and passes by;
Yet, passing, points to the glad feast above,
Giving sweet foretaste of the festal joy,
The Lamb’s great bridal feast of bliss and love.
(Complete Mission Praise No 230 verses 5 & 6)
We rejoice that Jesus the Saviour has come, and through trusting in him, we have cleansing from our sin, God is our refuge, and we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. All that is wonderful. But that is not all. We look forward to fuller salvation when Jesus Christ comes again and in the new heaven and new earth death, mourning, crying and pain will be no more. In the light of that we may well still proclaim ‘Oh that salvation would come!’
In summary, every area of human life is God’s business. Every area of our life is God’s business. Let us not leave God out through neglect or preference, but deliberately include him. And when others leave God out and evildoers make things even worse for us for being different and for making the Lord God our refuge, then we may well long for that day, when the victory that is already Christ’s will be fully established.
Romans 8:18-25.
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