The Fool

Let's read.

The fool says in his heart, there is no God.

They are corrupt and they do abominable deeds.

There is none who does good.

The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who

seek after God.

They have all turned aside.

Together they have become corrupt.

There is none who does good, not even one.

Have they no knowledge, all these evildoers, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not

call upon the name of the Lord?

There they are in great terror, for God is with the generation of the righteous.

You would shame the plans of the poor, but the Lord is his refuge.

O 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.

You may be seated.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we do thank you that you have opened our minds, that we are no longer

as those foolish, who live as though you were not there.

We pray, Father, for those among us even that are still that foolish, and that

you would enlighten and open their eyes as you have opened ours, that they might see that there is a God in heaven

to whom they are accountable, before whom they will stand one day, and that they would learn it

to follow you now, and that they would not come to that end when they do

meet you.

We pray that you'd bless the preaching of your word this afternoon, that you'd open our hearts, Father, to receive it,

that we would be changed by it, that you'd bless our pastor as he proclaims this

psalm to us.

We pray, Father, that you'd bless his words, that you'd use them in our hearts and in his to bring

us more close to the image of Jesus.

We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

Thank you.

There's so many kinds of fools in the world, are there not?

There's fools on the road.

There's that slowpoke fool, who when I want to go 25 miles an hour, is going 24.

And then there's that maniac fool, who when I want to go 25 miles an hour, is going 25

.01 miles an hour.

Of course, they're fools.

I say that a little bit tongue -in -cheek.

The world is full of fools.

Some of them are professional fools.

You might think of Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, where Dean Martin was tall, handsome,

Italian, a wonderful singer, very sophisticated, suave sort.

And Jerry Lewis, sort of the clownish one, and he'd play the fool, the foil fool, to

Dean Martin's more sophisticated figure.

Think of King Arthur's court.

King Arthur, like many kings in many countries, had a court jester.

He had a court fool.

His fool was Sir Dogenet, who was a knight of no mean accomplishment in arms, but

he was the court jester, the professional fool, if you will, the Jerry Lewis of his time.

There are fools of all kinds in the world.

And the psalm here speaks of a particular kind of fool, a

particular special kind of fool, who says in his heart, in the depth of his being, from deep

down in his soul, makes a confession, not unlike the confession which

you made when you came to Christ, that Jesus Christ is Lord.

That confession being made possible by the deep down commitment that the Holy Spirit gives you,

because it requires a changed heart, as the apostle Paul says, to be able to say Jesus is

Lord.

This fool in Psalm 14, this fool who we will examine in some

depth this afternoon, he is the one who in his heart, in the core of his being, deep

down within, makes this confession, there is no God.

These kind of confessions, these kind of commitments, have consequences.

Excuse me.

It says something about how a person is going to behave, how they're going to act, the decisions that

they make, the morals that they follow.

The fool says in his heart, there is no God, and immediately the psalmist says, they are corrupt, they

do abominable deeds, there is none who does good.

A man named Peter Craigie, a great commentator, wrote here, the fool is not a rare subspecies

within the human race, all human beings are fools apart from the wisdom of God.

And so here this fool sets his life on a trajectory to be one that is

done, one that is lived, one that is ministered and administered apart from

any knowledge of or commitment to God.

The fool says in his heart, there is no God.

One could ask for a moment, is it the confession that there is no God that makes him a fool?

Or is the fool that is the fool first, and because he is a fool, he makes this confession?

I would say the latter.

I would say it is the fool who is making this confession.

It's the one who says to his own heart, there is no God.

That one, as many as there are, is a fool.

In its original context, I think King David is looking upon his kingdom

here.

King David, Israel's poet, being the author of this psalm, and I think he's

looking upon the fool as a subset within his kingdom.

I think he's looking at this ungodly one as them.

And often, and we'll come to this in more parts of this psalm, but he says they are corrupt.

They do abominable deeds.

There is none, peren, among them, en peren, who does good.

It's them who are this shocking and surprisingly

bereft of any sense, fool.

They're corrupt.

They do abominable deeds, the moral corruption, and therefore that moral corruption leads to these deeds that he sees.

There is none among them who does good, among those who make this self -confession, among those who

say there is no God.

Now David doesn't say here that the godly people never sin.

The whole book of Leviticus deals with the sacrificial system, and that was for the godly who confess their sin and

come to God and resolve their sin by way of the temple sacrifices.

But here are these fools.

Here is this subset within his kingdom behaving this way,

and David looks with wisdom, a wisdom that he passed on to Solomon, a wisdom which Solomon

exceeded, but in a wisdom sort of saying in almost a parable sort of way.

He says the fool saying in his heart there is no God, and then what leads from that?

The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand,

who seek after God.

Are there any among them?

God is looking down.

God is seeing what is happening.

Is there anyone there amongst this group of fools who would seek after God?

Well, no.

They're fools.

There is no God.

How would they seek after him?

They've all turned aside, turned aside from God.

Together they've become corrupt, morally corrupt, doing these abominable deeds of the previous verses.

None who does good, not even one.

Are there any who seek?

Well, no, no.

Seeker sensitivity notwithstanding, there are none who seek after God,

because you in your natural state did not seek after God.

I was not seeking after God.

Even in the time when I was seeking after God, thinking that I was on my own and doing what I

would have myself to do, which is curiosity about God, and going towards him on my

own, even looking back I would say, well, no.

In that sense, it wasn't me.

It was God working in me.

There is no way to stop turning aside.

No way to stop being corrupt.

No way to do good without God's work in the heart, and the heart where this

confession is made, that there is no God.

Only God can change that and turn that around.

So the first application, the first thing we see in this psalm is the gratitude we must have

for God for what he has done, turning a heart of stone into a heart of flesh,

giving you faith to believe, giving you knowledge of the sovereign of the universe.

So you can say that there is a God, and his name is Jehovah, his name is Christ, his

Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

God looks down upon this body of fools, if you will, as David wonders if any of them

will ever turn away from their own ways, they've all turned aside from God, will they ever turn back?

What do they not understand?

We don't have an exact content of what they don't understand.

They don't understand physics.

They don't understand calculus.

They don't understand medicine.

No, they don't understand that God made the universe.

They don't understand that God is their sovereign, that God is the one to whom they must give an answer.

That this God they say there is none of is indeed looking down upon them

and watching them and wondering how long can they go in this aimless,

wrongful direction.

Do you know a fool like that?

Do you know a fool like that who needs to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, who needs their heart changed from

complete dangerous foolishness?

And I add the word dangerous.

You know, the fools I started out with, now you can always use traffic illustrations as a preacher, that's just

such low -hanging fruit, because it is true that if that guy is going a half mile an hour slower than

me, it's going to cause steam to come out of our ears.

If somebody goes by you half an hour faster, well, the opposite.

You know what I mean.

What don't they understand?

And that's obviously God.

And why won't they turn aside to God?

Because they've said in their heart that there is no God.

And all of us in that position saying there is no God somehow turned aside from our wrongful ways,

from our corrupt ways, and turned to God.

What a work of God in the heart.

What a gratitude we must return to Him.

You know, Jeremiah 29, 13, the prophet says, and these are beautiful words, you will

seek me, same word as we have here, there are none who seek after God, you will seek me and you will

find me when you seek me with all your heart.

And let's stop and think about that for a moment.

Speaking to sinners and saying you will seek me, it says

there are none who seek after God.

And you will find me when you seek me with all your heart

in which you say there is no God.

Now, I cannot take apart for you logically how this works.

I know not how the Spirit moves, convincing men of sin, which we sang this morning to end

the morning service, I don't know how it works.

I do know that in our inclination, the way we're born,

our hearts are all born saying there is no God, there is none to whom I owe an account.

Time and chance created what I see, I will enjoy it as I am here, there is no God to whom I need to

turn to, and what a miracle of

grace that God who chose you before the foundation of the world should give

you a heart that stops and says there is a God.

There is one to whom I must give an account.

There is one to whom I must flee to for my salvation.

You will seek me and you will find me when you seek me with all your heart.

It must be the new heart.

If that's what Jeremiah says, not much after him, not many years after him came Ezekiel and in chapter

36 and verse 26 of Ezekiel's prophecy, one of the clearest Old Testament prophetic

verses towards the gospel, he says, I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put

within you and I will remove the heart of stone from you, your flesh, and give you a heart of flesh.

Ezekiel has in mind this new heart, the one that is overwhelmed by the consciousness of its

incurable sinfulness and that has cried out for forgiveness.

And if David says by the Holy Spirit there's none who seeks after God, there's none who does good,

no not one, here's the answer.

Here's the gospel answer.

You will seek me and you will find me when you seek me with all your heart.

And where is that heart?

What is that heart that will seek after God?

This new heart, this heart that replaces the heart of stone.

See, when the Lord's surge and when the Holy Spirit creates faith in Christ Jesus, it is impossible to any longer say there

is no God.

Because that would be tantamount to saying what?

Something like Jesus is accursed, which the Apostle Paul says, no one by the Spirit can say that.

No one who has the Spirit can say that, because no one who has the Spirit has a heart that believes

that.

You don't believe Jesus is anything less than divine and perfect and beautiful and glorious and

holy.

But think of where you started.

You started with that black heart, that stony heart that said, no, he is simply not.

He is not.

Well, this is the fool's confession.

If our confession is that Jesus Christ is Lord, here's the fool's confession that Jesus Christ simply

isn't.

Where does all this start?

Well, it starts in our natural state, we know that.

When did this begin, this confession that there is no God?

We have to really go back to the Garden, to Genesis, to chapter 3, when Eve,

ignoring the Word of God and believing the Word of the serpent, took from the

tree and ate and brought with Adam the first sin into the world.

Was not eating that fruit tantamount to saying there is no God?

Is that not the same thing as saying that there is no God to whom I must give an account and this will be better than obeying

Him?

This will be better than following His ways, following the inclination of the heart as it

naturally is, without God's working?

This fool.

Where does someone come up with this foolhardy nature?

What way are they following in?

I think the fool has a spiritual father, and we don't have to go very far back in the Scriptures to

find him, most clearly represented, I believe, by the man whose name is

fool.

The word for fool, the fool says in his heart, the nabal, nabal says in his heart, there

is no God.

And we find him first represented, at least most clearly represented,

in chapter 25 of 1 Samuel.

It's sort of a long passage, so I'll paraphrase it and get to the point

that I want to make.

You remember King David, before he was king, he had been anointed, he is not yet enthroned, and he goes

to this man, nabal, or he sends messengers to this man, nabal, this man whose name

is fool, and says, we've been protecting you all this time, we've been watching your sheep and

watching for your men and your property and your fences and all these other things, so we need some food.

And nabal sends back something like a surly reply, well who is this David, I'm not going to give

David anything.

I didn't hire him for this, I didn't ask for this, tell him no.

So David, in a warrior's rage, is going to go upon nabal's camp or his home and

wipe them all out.

And along the way, he comes across nabal's wife, Abigail.

Abigail talks David out of what he was going to do, and

he listens to her, he listens to her wisdom.

And in pleading with David not to go there and to so besmirch himself

and to bring sin and judgment upon himself for shedding blood, she says to him,

he is a fool, he is as his name.

He is named nabal and that's what he is, he's a fool.

So don't you go and corrupt yourself by taking revenge against him.

So here's this man who, like Abigail, when she bowed down before David, knowing he had been anointed to be the king to

replace Saul, it apparently was known throughout much of the land there.

Here is this nabal who must have known that as well, speaking in this way, is that not in essence saying there is no

God, there is no God who anointed this one king, there is no God to whom I owe an account and

submission to his king on earth.

It is.

It's much the same.

I think this nabal in 1 Samuel 25 is in a sort of an

allegorical sense maybe, the father of all fools who turn aside.

Do you know a fool like that?

I don't mean the slow poke or the maniac, I mean the fool who doesn't know God.

It should break your heart to think of those ones that we love.

My son, for example, and your unbelieving siblings and children and

parents, what does the scripture say?

They are fools, saying in their heart that there is no God, not a rare subspecies.

All human beings are fools apart from this wisdom of God.

Verse 4 says, Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon the

Lord?

You would shame the plans of the poor, but the Lord is his refuge.

You see, this confession has a consequence.

Where a whole society says there is no God, we've seen what results from that.

And we can make the long laundry list, and I won't do that this afternoon, but we know the sorts of things, and just in

very short and very brief terms, just abortion and same sex

marriage, just those two things.

Do they not first depend upon this fool confession that there is no God?

And do they not sort of brush aside in a condescending way, the argument says, but the Lord

says, but God's word says, life is precious and life

is a gift and therefore abortion is murder.

But the word of God teaches that male and female, he made them both.

And that they're to stay in those categories because it's a blessing from God.

And brush aside his simpletons, calling the believer in that confession, the fool.

Take heart, Christian.

Take heart as you stand fast for the Lord.

That the scripture says it is not you that is the fool.

Because according to your word, I am wiser than many of my teachers, says the psalmist.

By following God's word.

Not you, who is treated as a fool when you make that confession or when you make that argument.

What does the scripture say?

Where is your confidence then?

It is the fool who said in his heart, there is no God, and has adjusted his life, made his

bearings according to that confession.

You would shame the plans of the poor, but the Lord is his refuge.

To shame the poor is an amazing way of acting out this

confession of there is no God.

You know Leviticus chapter 19 verse 15, one of my favorite passages in all of scripture,

and it's that context where we get, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, the other command that's like the first great

command according to the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

You shall not be partial to the poor, literally you shall not take away his face, you shall not shame him,

you shall not make him unable to show himself in public, and this is cemented into place with the

confession from God, confession if you will from God, I am the Lord.

Now all of God's word is to be obeyed, but when God says I am the Lord, he's putting an extra stamp of

gravity on it.

You shall not be partial to the poor, I am the Lord.

I say in my heart there is no God, therefore I can shame the plans of the poor,

I can make him embarrassed, I can make them feel less than, and

how is this?

Because I believe there is no God, there is no God whose standard says to do otherwise.

God is the defender of the poor, God is the defender of the helpless, God it is who commanded

the Israelites not to cut the corners of their fields when they harvested.

They're supposed to take a nice round turn around those corners so that the corners are left in place, and they're not

supposed to go over the field twice to get everything out of it.

Why is that?

Think about this for a moment.

This one who says there is no God says that from his heart and shames the plans of the poor.

If we compare that to what God says to the fields, why are the fields to be managed in that

way?

Well so that when the poor person comes along, he doesn't have to grovel as it were.

He doesn't have to sort through lots of chaff to get a single kernel that he can put in his pocket or in his

bag and bring home.

It should be easy for him, dignifying if you will.

The corners should have plenty there so he doesn't have to stop and find a sheaf that is still standing.

He can just pick what has been left by the merciful obedience

of the landowner.

One of the outworkings of the fool's heart is to shame the plans of the poor.

Not realizing that the Lord is his refuge, it is the Lord who he says there is none.

But the psalmist tells us the Lord is his refuge and the Lord will call him to account.

David sees the poor man as unable to rise up or stand with dignity because when he does some self -important

tyrant has a way of shoving him back in his place.

We need to look to our own conscience.

We need to look to our own heart.

We spoke this morning about the unity that we are to have to consider others as more significant than yourselves.

To consider not just yourself, get rid of interests.

You remember that from the message.

Consider not just yourself but consider others.

Consider their person.

Consider their person before God in every way that you treat them.

We need to look to our conscience and ask ourselves, is the way I am treating this brother, this

sister, this person who is not even a brother or sister in the Lord but made in the image of God with the

dignity that God's word would have me to do?

Or is that for that moment a confession for me that there is no God and I am going to go off this direction

or behave in this way or speak in this de -dignifying manner?

Have you ever been shamed like that?

Have you ever had someone embarrass you publicly?

We need to remember times like that.

We need to think of times like that in everything that we treat others with and make sure

that the confession of our heart comes out in the way we speak and in our

demeanor towards people.

Verse 5 says, There they are in great terror, for God is with the generation of the

righteous.

This is a very difficult verse really to figure out on its own.

There they are in great terror.

Where and why?

Well, the why seems to be the second half of this.

For God is with the generation of the righteous.

But what's the where?

What's the there?

Psalm 53 is virtually the same as Psalm 14.

And that one has a comma.

There they are, comma, in great terror.

I was like, what is this situation where they have this terror?

And I concluded it can't be in this life.

It can't be in this life that they are in great terror unless the Lord has converted their heart and shown them the terror,

the danger of their ways, and the end of their confession that there is no God, which is

condemnation by the God they say there is none of.

But in general, no, it can't be this life.

The decry of the psalmist in many places is that the ungodly, those who say there is no

God, seem to have it so good and easy.

Psalm 73 is perhaps the most famous example of that.

So where are they in great terror?

I believe it is when they meet God, when they face the risen and exalted Lamb of God who took away the

sins of the world.

Now notice something I said.

John the Baptist said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

And I said who took away.

Because I believe when they are in their great terror, it's when they see God,

when they're before Christ at the judgment seat, and then takes away, no longer takes, because in this

life is your last chance.

Do you know this Jesus?

Do you now have in your heart this confession that there is no God?

Repent now.

Repent while you could be saved in this life.

Because if you don't repent now, if you don't from your heart confess that Jesus is Lord, and in

faith go to Him for forgiveness of sins, the terror will be when you see Him and

takes away the sin of the world becomes took away with no second chance to go back and

say now take it.

No, that was past.

There they are in great terror before the judgment seat of the Lamb.

He took away the sin of the world by suffering on the cross.

He takes away the sin of the world, your sin, by that same suffering, by

means of that same merit that He earned.

He takes away now if you will but turn to Him in faith and repentance and seek Him

for forgiveness of sins.

The cross was a one -time event.

It was the pinnacle of history.

It was the fulfillment of the hope from Genesis 3 .15 when the fruit was taken off the tree

from that time forward.

But when they are there, when the fool sees God having followed the dictates of his heart, that takes become

took and that's only terror that is left.

Oh, that salvation for Israel, verse 7, would come out of Zion when the Lord restores the fortunes of

His people.

Let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.

It's this verse that tells me that David was looking at a subset of his kingdom.

But he's still talking about salvation for Israel.

He's still talking about the elect that will know this salvation, this restoration of

the fortunes of His people.

And your restoration came when God brought you to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Salvation, restoration of fortunes, all refreshed calls for rejoicing.

Salvation, this return to God's good hand, by His good hand to the wholeness and to the well -being

that God always attended.

David was infallibly inspired by the Spirit when he wrote this, when he looked out at

his people and saw those fools who were behaving the way they did and understood the reason

for it, which is that they said in their heart, there is no God.

This psalm is used quite notably in Romans chapter

3 as well, is it not?

And there I was trying to draw the contrast between the way Paul interprets that psalm that David wrote without

saying anything that David was wrong, of course, because David wasn't wrong.

But Paul saw it a little bit broader, quite a bit broader.

In chapter 3 and verse 9 of Romans, Paul says, He says 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 the sin

as it is written.

Before we read the as it is written part, understand we says that all, both Jews and Greeks,

he's meaning the world.

He's meaning everybody.

When I read what comes next, understand this is everybody without distinction.

Jew or Greek is just the paradigm that he used to speak

of the whole natural world.

All are under sin as it is written.

None is righteous, no, not one.

No one understands, no one seeks for God.

All have turned aside, together they have become worthless.

No one does good, not even one.

You see, this is the ultimate meaning of the psalm.

Again, David wasn't wrong.

Of course he wasn't wrong.

He was inspired by the same Holy Spirit who inspired Paul.

So what changed between this group that he could say, they have turned aside, they have become

corrupt.

It's them.

And how can they not believe in my God?

How can we go from that, 100 correct and infallible, to

Paul?

Paul says, not they, all.

Jews, Greeks, all have turned aside.

Where do we get that transition and call them both correct?

The cross.

The cross answers everything.

Some of the most befuddling, most difficult questions in Scripture, if you just stop for a moment and think

and pray, but think and pray, but think cross.

The cross answers.

Jesus Christ on the cross, he's the one who shows that

the whole world is corrupt.

That none in the world can be born in a way that has any heart other than there is no God.

For you are by nature children of wrath.

For you are born dead in your trespass and sins, and so forth.

And we can multiply those verses, but those two are enough to get the point across.

From King David, as a king, as God's rule on earth, looking out on his people,

in angst for his people, and wondering when they will stop being abused by these godless abusers,

to Paul.

And both these bridge to both these 100 % correct, though David didn't see it as extensive as Paul.

But the answer is the cross.

Because the cross proves that the whole world is under the condemnation of God.

All saying there is no God.

Paul says that in Romans 1 verse 18, thinking to become

wise, they become fools and change the immortal God into

images of creeping things, and so forth.

Do you know a fool like that?

Well, you can pray for them.

It's a great evangelical opportunity to look and say, you know, there is a God, and you're born with this heart that

confesses there is no God.

And show them the dread consequence, as I'm proclaiming to you, if you don't know Christ this afternoon.

The dread consequence that there you will be in great terror, unending terror,

unresolvable terror, terror that can never be turned around or turned off because the

opportunity is now in this life and in this life only.

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 when God

restored your fortunes by giving you that heart to believe.

Let us be glad as we wait for the Lord's return.

Let us rejoice, let us be glad in the Lord.

Let us look and say, who was that fool?

Well, every morning when I shave, I'm looking eye to eye with that one.

Who was that fool?

Who was, at least I should say, once that fool?

Many fools in the world, fools who don't drive the way we do.

There are professional fools.

There are fools in courts of kings.

There are fools on television played foils against the more sophisticated types,

all for entertainment.

For this fool, this Nabal, this one who falls on the footsteps of Abigail's husband, this

one who is like his name, he is a fool.

For that fool, there's only one cure.

There's only one remedial action to be taken.

Repent.

Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Plead with him for the new heart to believe and trust him to, by his Spirit, change you

and bring you to repentance and faith in him.

Well, you and I all know these fools.

And if God changed you, he can change the ones that we still know.

If God changed your heart, he can change anybody's heart.

Notice I didn't say my heart because we're all in this together.

The gentlest, meekest, humblest, kindest amongst you in your natural state

needs just as much a heart change from God by his Spirit, by the new creation work

that he and he alone does by his Son and his work on the cross.

You need that change just as much as the most criminal, the darkest,

most egregiously bad person who was ever born.

Both need that miracle of rebirth.

Both need that new heart, the old heart of stone taken out, the heart of flesh put in.

So what Jeremiah said in 29, 13, you will seek me, you will find me, when you seek me with all your heart,

when you seek me with all that new heart that stops the nonsense of confessing that there is no

God.

I pray that if you don't know Jesus Christ, this day, that you will hear what I'm

saying.

You are a fool.

That the Lord Jesus Christ told the parable of the rich man who, when his crops were so big, when he had so

much money, he had to build bigger barns.

He said, I know what I'm going to do.

I'm going to tear down the small barn and build a bigger barn.

And what does Jesus Christ say?

He says, you fool.

This very night, your soul will be required of you.

You fool.

This very afternoon, God might require his soul of you.

And then as Jesus says, then what will become of all these goods that you've stored up,

these bigger barns that you have built?

I will plead with you this day.

Leap aside your foolishness.

Confess it to God.

Go to him.

Pray for a new heart.

And believe this gospel in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.