The Psalms make reference to two kinds of atheists. The human heart in its fallen condition does not seek after God. The Lord intervenes in mercy and grace to save and sanctify us.
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Rebirth Church Sermons
Playlist for Life Series_ Psalm 14: The Fool says in his Heart_ Grenville Green
(Applause) We thank you Father, we bless you. Good morning family, we are in the Book of Psalms today. Good morning. I stand here by grace alone. Ask my wife, I barely made it out of bed today, but God has given me strength to come up here in the lowest point as a servant just to come and preach His word this morning, so ask you just to bear with me today if you hear some sniffles or some coughs. But nothing will stop me from proceeding. So if you have your Bible with you, you'll turn with me to the Book of Psalms. We in the Book of Psalms and chapter 14. Amen. So Pastor Bivin and I have to arm wrestle over this one. It's one of our favorite Psalms. Luckily, Biv, it's repeated in Psalm 53, so you can take that one. Psalm 14. You know, I often say, and I'm pretty looking forward to next week's message as well. I often say some of the greatest fears in life is death and public speaking, but another one is preaching after Pastor Israel. So I think we'll leave that once. Pastor Biv as well. But such a dynamic man of God, a great expositor of the Word of God. We really look forward to just hearing him. And if you guys have YouTube or if you have any of the platform, just go and follow him on social media and follow him on YouTube. Such a blessing just to hear his take on the Scriptures. So if you can turn it leads to Psalm 14. And the title of the Psalm, the title of the message, is "The Fool Has Said In His Heart, There Is No God." It's titled "Folly and Weakness of Men." For the choir director, a Psalm of David. "The Fool Has Said In His Heart, There Is No God." They are corrupt. They have committed abominable deeds. There is no one who does good. The Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there is anyone who understands. Who seek God, who seek after God. They have turned, they have all turned aside. Together they have become corrupt. There is no one who does good, not even one. Do all the workers of wickedness not know. Who eats up my people as they eat bread. And do not call upon the Lord. They are in great trade. For God is with the righteous generation. You would put to shame the counsel of the afflicted. But the Lord is his refuge. Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion. When the Lord restores his captive people. Jacob will rejoice. Israel will be glad. Amen. God bless you as the reading of his word. Now, you can clearly see from the very first line in this text. And this is where we will spend the majority of our time today. The full has set in his hearts. There is no God. This is a very bold statement. And this psalm is a lament. But also, like most psalms, it starts off with a lament. It ends up with a praise to God. And we can subdivide this into three sections. And we'll go through that now. But this is an examination of the heart of the atheist from God's perspective. God is sitting in his throne and making an observation of the heart of an unbeliever. Or the heart of the heart of an atheist. So, we'll just look at the structure really quickly here. So, Psalm 14 progresses from God's assessments of the full. And that's in verse 1-2-3. To God's assurance of rescue of his people in 4-2-6. And in closing with the prayer for that rescue. So, if you want to look at how we can split it up, we'll split it up into three sections. And that will be 14-1-2-3. So, that's God's assessment of humankind by nature. 4-2-6. God's assurance for his beleaguered church or his troubled church. God's giving assurance to us as his church and also to the troubled people at the time. And verse 7, an urgent prayer for Christ the Savior. If you want to look at it to the contemporary church. So, what we see here in Psalm 14 is the doctrine of two parts. We just went through the Proverbs and we see there are two parts. You know, there's the narrow part that leads to life. He says seek the narrow part which leads to life. And then you have the broad part which leads to destruction and death. So, you have the structure of two parts. The part of the wise and the part of the fool. You see this sentiment continued in this. You've got the part of the wise and the part of the fool here mentioned. Now, if we would just want to look quickly at what the Psalm is ideally dressing here. It's ideally dressing atheism. Now we in the contemporary age understand atheism as one way rights which is theoretical atheism. We understand the guys like Dawkins and we see many of them debating Christians online and we see theoretical atheism. This is where somebody outright would refute the existence of God to say that God does not exist. There's no belief in God, there's no grounding for God, there's no background for God. And this is a bit of a personal one for me because I have people who are call friends and family members who are now rabid atheists where I actually went. I made a mistake of going online and checking out their pages this week. And it shudders me. It really, really gets to my heart because I see family members who are outright attacking God. And I see arguments like God is. God is a tyrant because he decided to kill so many people in the flood and he decided to kill so many people in the old testament. And some arguments like where do we see Satan lying? God is the liar. These are the type of arguments that family members are putting forward to say that God is a tyrant, God is a liar, God is end-end. Satan is innocent in all of this and it sounds like a little loose epharianism to me. But when you've got family members speaking like this and people who are call friends supporting them. Yes, you're right. I also don't believe this. The Bible is a fallacy, etc, etc. And this is rabid atheism. But this is not the atheism that we talk about in this particular Psalm. What we have in this Psalm is what you call practical atheism. So you have theoretical atheism where you'll find somebody saying God does not exist. There's no space in his heart for God, but we have practical atheism. And practical atheism refers to a way of living without acknowledging or referencing God rather than explicit denial of God's existence. So this is somebody who lives as if there is no God, even though there may be a belief in God, a grounding for God. And this is somebody like my family member who believed in God, went to church. Believe it or not, even preached the gospel at some point is now actively against God. And, you know, oftentimes we want to look at the Antichrist in the book of Revelation and we're looking for him. Who was he? Was he Hitler? Was it this guy? Was it Trump? You know, people are trying to identify the Antichrist. And we forget that in the book of I think it's 1 John where it says that there are many Antichrists who have gone out. The spirit of Antichrist is life in this world and this is the same spirit that blanks the minds of people. So this is practical atheism. Practical atheists are individuals who live as if there's no God and don't consider him in their manner of life. This form of atheism appears to be increasing and often stems from apathy or indifference towards the question of God's existence. And the sad truth of this reality is that there are many Christians who sit in churches who are practical atheists, who live a life who profess inwardly or outwardly to be Christians, who profess to be godly or profess to believe in God, but love a life as if God doesn't exist. You see them in places they shouldn't be, in relationships that they shouldn't be, and speaking as if they shouldn't speak, I saw something online the other day that disturbed me where a preacher, a woman, I've got a prophetess who was saying that she would use foul language and doesn't affect her. You know, this doesn't bother her to use foul language because this is how she is. She is who she is, but it's not understanding that the scripture forbids certain ways of life. And we have so many Christians in this day and age where you find them in the nightclubs who are indulging in things that they shouldn't be. And this is very disturbing because practical atheism is so rife in the church today that you wouldn't even consider that there would be atheists sitting in the presence of the saints. But this, you know, they don't acknowledge him. This is essentially what practical atheism is. It's categorized by actual living out of your life and without reference to acknowledging the possibility of God's existence. So another source describes this as informal atheism where God is not allowed a significant place in one's life. Even if belief in God is not explicitly denied, some refer to this as simply being godless. So you have something that they call being agnostic. Agnostic is, you know, you sit on the fence, you neither deny or you confirm that the existence of a God. But this particular issue is not an issue of the mind. It's not an intelligence issue. So when the Bible says that the fool has said in his heart there is no God, it's not particularly talking to somebody's intellect. They are not foolish in that way. We often think that the fool is referred to in the way of intellect or there are simple turns, but the Bible is not referring to it in this way. The Bible is saying that it's a heart issue. The fool has said in his heart that there is no God, not in his head or his mind. And one thing to consider, that we have atheists on this earth now, roaming the earth saying there is no God. God is a tyrant and all of these things that they might throw accusations against a living God. But in hell they are no atheists. Everyone believes in God, in hell, because they have to face his throne. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Everyone in hell believes in God and that's a sad reality and even in hell that they would curse God. So this is the doctrine of two parts, right? And so we looked at the structure and I just want to look at the exposition of the Psalms. So you keep your Bible open and I want you to also turn with me also to chapter 53 of Psalms. You can keep your one finger on Psalm 14 and the next on Psalm 53. And while you are turning there, I'll just give some context. So Psalm 14, as I said, is a lament and it's familiar to wisdom literature. The full in verse one, as in the strong distinction between the righteous and the wicked, like many Lament Psalm 14 ends with the notes of confidence and expectation of future praise of God. So it's a Lament Psalm. It's also reference to wisdom, wisdom literature. And so as I said, it's not more or less seen as an intellectual full but more morally repraved. Psalm 14 has its twin in Psalm 53. That your fingers are now and we're going to look at that very quickly. So if we look at Psalm 14 verse one. And I just want to look at the parallel there. Psalm 14 verse one to three. The full is hidden in his heart. There is no God. There are corrupts. They have committed abominable deeds. There's no one who does good. The Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there's any who understand who see God. All turned aside, together they become corrupts. There is no one who does good, not even one. Now Psalm 53 verse one. The full is hidden in his heart. There is no God. There are corrupts. They have done abominable iniquity. There's no one who does good. God looks down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there's any who understand who see God. Every one of them has turned aside. They are together become corrupts. There's no one who does good. No, not one. Word forward. Go on. There's no word for word outside of one or two. Two lines. Now, I think we've mentioned this from a pulpit before. When something is mentioned twice, we need to pay attention to it. God has found it so important and so imperative for us to understand the concepts of the full. Saying in his heart there is no God that is actually made two identical Psalms speaking to this. So we should pay attention and pay close attention to what is being said in the Psalm because it's actually mentioned in Psalm 53 again. So the twin is Psalm 53. And the only difference that I've seen is Psalm 14 5 to 6 and then Psalm 53 5 which there's a slight difference there but are identical in all other ways. So David is said to be the author of the Psalm. He speaks of the full or the roots were there is Nabal who denies there's a car and acts in a wicked manner. Now, verse one, there is no God. The full says in his heart there is no God. They are corrupt. They do abominable deeds. There's no one who does good. So the Psalm begins with the reflection of the full. There are many Hebrew words for full. As I said, the Psalmist used the word Nabal and you can actually see somebody nicknamed Nabal in 1 Samuel 25 verse 3. And it reads as follows. Now the man's name was Nabal. His wife's name was Abigail. And the woman was intelligent and beautiful in appearance. But the man was harsh and evil in his dealings. So you see the name given sometimes the Bible would give people names after to portray their character. Saying that this man was foolish because he was harsh and evil in his dealings. He was foolish in the biblical context. So if we then look at, so I just want us to look very quickly at something here. So there's an antithetical statement here. When we went through the book of Proverbs, Pastor Bev covered as Proverbs 1 verse 7, which is in essence covering the full themes and scope of the Proverbs. And it says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all knowledge. We remember that, right? And that covers the full scope of the book of Proverbs. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of all knowledge of chapter 1 verse 7. So here we get the antithetical statements which is basically the opposites were reverse of this. The rejection of God is the start of folly and moral corruption. So what we're stating here is the opposites of wisdom and it speaks to the folly of mankind. So the opposites of the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all knowledge. And the rejection of God is the start of foolishness and moral corruption. And this is what we see in the word Nabal or full. So it is the height of God to attack. It is the height of sin to attack the very existence of God, the most like God. And it's also the greatest foolishness. To say there's no God is to deny the plainest evidence. It is like a man who denies the existence of fire. And the fire doesn't stop from burning him. So doubting the existence of God won't stop. The charge of all the earth destroying the rebel who prates his law. So atheism is one of the highest crimes. It is treason. Atheism is a crime which provokes terrible vengeance on the full. Thomas Fuller said it this way. A full stun is long enough to cut his own throat. So some of the questions we can ask when reflecting on this. That may a man profess with his mouth to believe and yet say the reverse in his heart. So how many times have we heard or seen somebody profess with his mouth? I believe in God. I'm a believer. I'm a Christian. I stand with God. And we see the reverse in his heart because God sees the heart. So when God is looking down from his throne, he's not looking for the most intellectual. He's not looking for the most strongest. He's not looking for the things that we would look as strength. He's looking for those who believe. So another question to ask is, is this where a man becomes an unbeliever in his heart? In his heart and not his head. Because we often think sometimes it's an intellectual thing that happens. That somebody comes with a different reasoning and therefore the mind starts changing and therefore the heart starts changing and therefore outlook on life starts changing. Or does it happen in the heart? Because the fool didn't say in his head that there is no God. It started in his heart. The seat of all human emotions. Well in intentions. So does his heart then try to quiet his conscience for the voice of reason? Because God has placed inside us eternity as the scripture says. God has put each and every one of us in our hearts the existence of God. Which is why every society in the history of mankind has sought to seek God in some type of way. You go to Rome and you see the Roman gods. You go to Norway, you see Thor and all of these gods. You go to South America and you'll see some form of gods. Even the Pushmen, they would believe in some type of gods. Every society has had a belief in God. Whether they had a revelation of God or not because God put it in our hearts. In our hearts is put eternity in our hearts is set deep inside of us. The pursuit of God. This is what he's done for us. So what do we do as mankind as we silence him? We suppress our conscience. The voice of reason. And this is what the fool is doing here. He suppresses his conscience. He quiets the voice of reason in his heart. As his heart grows it just tastes for good. It's no wonder that he tries to rid himself of the great moral covener we have in Elohim. We want to get rid of God. Man is born, not once in God. If it wasn't for the work of Christ and the work of God we wouldn't seek God in our own. We can't seek him on our own. Even faith is a gift as the Bible says. Everything that we have, even pertaining to salvation, pertaining to morality. Our moral code he says is written in his word in our hearts. Which is why we know not to murder. Which is why we know not to steal. Which is why we know not to commit adultery. Which is why we know not to do these things. But what we do in our hearts is we don't want God. Man is inclined not to want God. And this is man's natural state. Spurgeon says it this way. Fools can raise more objections in an hour than wise men can answer in seven years. And fools will try and confound you with wise words, big words. And you listen to these debates online and you will see very, very grandiose arguments against God. But all of these big words don't make your arguments louder. You speak loudest isn't the most correct. This is what foolish people do. They will try and sound more intelligent. But God has used the foolishness of the gospel. Foolishness as the Bible says. It's foolish. It sounds foolish to the carnal mind. But he's used the foolishness of the gospel to confound the wise. There's something as silly as the gospel that you must die so that you can live. It doesn't make sense. That you must give so that you can receive. It doesn't make sense. It is foolishness to the carnal mind. But for us who live and trust him wholly and fully understand that it is only in the gospel that we are saved. We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, by scripture alone to the glory of God alone. This is the foolishness of the gospel that fools will never understand this. And their arguments will never make sense. And I can poke a thousand holes in those Facebook comments and it's like this doesn't make sense to say that Satan is never light. And I said, "Man will die." "Man will surely die." Yes, he did die. He died first spiritually. And then he numbered his days and eventually died physically. But foolishness to the carnal mind. So when we look at some applications here, so I love apologetics. I've got a heart for apologetics. I think I shared from the pulpit chair that I was in a cult at one time. And it pains me to say so. But because I, my belief in Christ wasn't grounded enough. And my belief in the gospel wasn't solid enough. And I was laid away by some doctrine. Some wave of doctrine that took me swiftly. And I knew in my heart that this wasn't right. But because of the sweet teachings of this place, I was swept to believe that this man has come. And the only salvation is found in this one man is like, okay, it doesn't sound right. But I was swept away by this. And I've got a heart for apologetics. Apologetics is the defense of the gospel. So the gospel is not an argument first and foremost. We don't argue the gospel. The gospel is a proclamation. But apologetics is defense of the gospel. We should all be able to put up a defense of the gospel if asked. If somebody says does God exist, you should be able to stand. What is the gospel? You should be able to defend the gospel. So we're not arguing what we defend the gospel. I have a heart for apologetics. But apologetics has a place in the body of theology. But let us not preach to the head. Because sometimes we argue intellectually. We want to meet somebody here. And whoever has the biggest words and better concepts wins the argument. Because if I can confound you with big words and big theology, then I can beat you. But let us not preach only to the head, but we preach to the heart. Let us aim our arrows directly to the heart. We preach the all-conquering gospel. And he will win over more atheist and doubters of the gospel than a legion of our best reasoners. This is plain and simple. We preach the gospel. But God has not chosen intellectual arguments over the gospel. He's chosen the gospel as his vehicle and method to spread the word. So we preach the unconquerable eternal gospel and not use big words as our weapon of offense. So there is no God in essence. He says that there's no savior, no ruler. But more importantly, what I want us to look at is that there's no lociver. Because by saying there's no God means that we are free to do what we want to do. The Satanist creed. And I think I've mentioned it here. What the Satanist believe? They have one commandment. One commandment. Do what you want to do. There is the whole law. Do what thou will shall be the whole law. And that is what Satanist believe. Do whatever feels good. If it feels good to do it, if you want to have sleep with as many people as you want, do it. If you want to do as many drugs as you want to do it. If you want to live immorally, do it. If it feels good to do it, do it. And this is in essence a satanic creed which the atheist is saying, let us remove the moral law giver. There is taking more of a visit and it gives us the ability to go and do what we want to do. Because man wants to do what he wants to do. This is our nature. You don't need to teach a child. Eliana is now pushing two years old and getting to that naughty two stage. She bites me all the time and smacks me all the time. I didn't teach her this. She just learned this out of her own. I only say this, David mentioned that we are born in sin and we are shaped in iniquity. You don't need to teach a child to sin to be a sinner that comes naturally. It's like attacking water. We are born this way. We are inclined towards disobeying God, inclined towards sin. And this is the heart of man. As much as we want to teach a child to do right and be righteous, a child is going to be a child and a child is born in sin and shaped in iniquity. All of us are. There is none who do righteous. There is none who do right, not one as the Psalm says. So this is the heart of man. And this is in essence what this atheist is saying. There is no God because he is not in essence saying that he is a theoretical atheist that God doesn't exist. We come from here, we are going into nothingness. No, this is somebody who has an idea of God but doesn't choose to keep him in his mind. He doesn't want him in his heart because he doesn't want a modern low keeper to tell me what's right and wrong. And this is in essence what the Psalm is saying. So once I look at a quick case study on somebody called Frederick Nietzsche. So some of you who have studied philosophy and psychology would know this name very well. And this is one of the forefathers or one of the forerunners of the modern philosophical movements. His influence writers, his influence musicians, his influence so many people in this day and age. And so Frederick Nietzsche, there is some background in him. He was born in 1844 in a quite village in the eastern part of Germany. His father was a priest. So he did exceptionally well in school. He was very intelligent. He excelled so much in ancient Greek that they actually made him a professor in his mid-20s in a university in Basel. So very smart, very intelligent, very intellectual. Father was a priest. So he was a prophet of what they say in German as "cells do wind and mess that up". But basically in English it's self overcoming. He was a prophet of this that you can overcome yourself. You can defeat your weaknesses, your proclivities. You can overcome this. He also championed a saying in German called the Ubermensch. Ubermensch is German for Superman. And so he introduced this term as an ideal for humanity. Signifying basically, you didn't have to have it in here to model law. So what he basically championed here. So this was a man. If I can just paint this picture for you. This was a professor, smart man. He wrote multiple books and for philosophy. And you know these philosophers were very strange. But basically he felt Christianity was too restrictive. He keeps you in a box. You can't do this. You can't do that. You can't go here. You can't speak to these people. You can't enjoy these certain things. And he found it very restrictive so he caused a side Christianity. He said this thing is a problem for humanity. And what I want to introduce in my philosophy is what I call the Superman. That you yourself, in yourself, can overcome yourself. You can defeat your weaknesses. You can overcome yourself. Reliance of self. And in its very infancy, the heart of this of its philosophy is anti-Christian. It's very, very anti-Christian if you look at it because the gospel says that we can do nothing in ourselves. Unless you die to yourself, you can't live. You can do nothing outside of Christ because he is the vine and our father is the vine tree. So if you're not encouraged into him, you are dead. If you don't find yourself in Christ, you are dead without him because he is life. He is the prayer of life. He gives us the fruit of life. He is our life. And what this man's philosophy was saying that Christianity puts you in a box. This thing is too restrictive because now I can't sleep with the one I sleep with. I want to do these things. I can't go to these places anymore. I want to do the things that I want to do. And this is what he viewed Christianity as a box. So he came up with these recommendations. Four recommendations. And basically he says, number one, own up to you envy. Own up to you envy. He says there's nothing wrong with envy. Maintain nature. So long as we use it as a guide to what we really want. Every person who makes us envious should be seen as an indication of what we could one day be. So if I look up to Pastor Clinton, as he's achieved so much envious of his life, he's got a beautiful home. Beautiful cars. Beautiful wife. Beautiful things. I shouldn't look at it as a restrictive thing as Christianity puts it. But I should look at one day I can become like him. I can overcome my weaknesses and one day I can become a great man like him. This was his first view. Second view was don't be a Christian. In the entire New Testament, there's only the only person worth respecting. This is his words. The only person worth respecting in the New Testament was a Roman governor. Pilate. Pontius Pilate. Look on them Christ. And that comes ironically from a book he wrote called the Antichrist in 1888. He resented Christianity for protecting people from the envy. Christianity was a blocker for him. Number three, never drink alcohol. Ideally, I'll probably agree with this one, but there's some nuances here. He says there's been two great narcotics in European civilization. Christianity and alcohol. Two great drugs. He hated alcohol for the very same reason he's gone Christianity because both nampane and both reassure us that the things are just fine as they are robbing us of the will to change our lives. For the better. So alcohol drops you of the willingness for the ability to change your life. So does Christianity. You lump them together. And the last and most controversial and probably most well-known statement that he made is God is dead. He believed that culture should replace scripture. Because he came in the age of enlightenment. Europeans now were getting enlightened. They were making new discoveries. There was new philosophies and sciences coming out. And he believed that scripture was old news. Just like we see today. The Bible doesn't apply today. Because we have gender ideology and we have all of these different new age ideas that come out today. And the scripture is old. The Bible is how old people tells with things that doesn't fit today's culture because we want to kill God. And what Nietzsche says, God is dead. Fred of Nietzsche is bold assertion that God is dead and we have killed him. Stands is one of the most iconic and provocative statements in history of philosophy. This signifies the decline of the Christian God models. Christian God's models and metaphysical dominance in Western society. Nietzsche declared declaration does not concern the physical demise of the deity but signifies the collapse of the metaphysical model framework. So what he's ideally saying here is that he's not saying that God is actually dead in a grave. But what he's saying is that the beliefs and the moral standards of Christianity is dead. And we need to move on to something different which is the Superman that we ourselves can save ourselves. Which has an anti-Christian. Now the death of God would mean that there would be a vacuum in the source of absolute truth and morality. There was a transition towards more relevant relative and subjective understanding of moral truth. And you hear those terms often today that truth and morals are subjective. It depends on you because you say for me it means this and for you it means this. So to say that murder is a bad thing. It's relative. Models are relative. It depends on you because we don't have now a moral standard anymore which God said thou shalt not. God was a standard and everything that doesn't agree with God's standard is false. Let God be true in every man or liar. Now what he's saying now is kill God and we now have moral relativism and subjective truth. So it's subjective and relative to all truth because the truth is about truth. Is that truth as a standard? There's one truth not my truth and your truth and what you feel today. You decide that you wake up feeling like a cat and tomorrow you something else. That is the truth. You are a man or you are a woman and that is it. There's no changing it. There's no changing how you feel about yourself and how you feel today determines on your view on life. God's truth is God's truth and sin is sin. Now we try to justify truth and the Bible says that what do we hear most quotes good evil and evil good? Because now evil is become good and good is become evil. And something very disturbing us all online where initially when the homosexual revolution started it's like let us just have a place in society except us just let us live our lives and now they push the agenda. Every movie, every TV show, everything is pushing an agenda and everyone's okay with that now it's fine. But that's not the point I want to make is that I started seeing something called MAPS which is minor attracted person syndrome which means that I'm attracted to children and I'm both born this way. And this is because when you make one compromise it's easier to make the next compromise. You steal a ten cents it's easier to steal a hundred and easy to steal a million. One compromise leads to the next and now we've led this moral decay because we've killed God. We've minused him. Minused his moral law from society. Now it's easy for somebody to say I saw them making a TED talk advocating for minor attracted persons that I'm attracted to kids and I was born this way I can't help it. Now how long until that becomes now just accept us let us have our place in society. But we've got a fight against these things we've got to speak up against it because and something I really as much as we view Trump as whatever but one of his things was let's bring God back into school. Let's bring prayer back into school and the moment we've taken God out of society is the moment we see these ills coming in. And this is what the storm is talking about. The storm is talking about remove God and see the moral decay of society. If you remember nothing else that is what this is talking about and the reason I'm bringing Nietzsche in because these are the philosophies that we learn in schools, in universities and these are the teachings. I think Sritia was looking at some videos the other day about Freud. You guys know Freud is Sigmund Freud and he's got some very very weird views on sexuality, believes that we all attracted to our parents and these are things that have been taught in universities. Model decay, model decay because it's the age of enlightenment and we want to be better and we want to grow tree of knowledge of good and evil. So that's what Freud says. So with the world and basically introduce something called nihilism. So there's a vacuum. There's a vacuum now in society. There's no God. So now he wants to replace it with what he sees as to fix. Let's take scripture out and let's put it in with culture. We're going to make culture advance and introduce something called what gave way to something called nihilism. And nihilism is a belief in the absence of anything with inherent meaning or value in life. Life becomes meaningless. And these are the things, these are troubles that that introduce with these views. So with the world now void of godly purpose, Nietzsche advocates for the reevaluation of values and the creation of new meanings. Now when I read you something, this is a poem or story that he wrote in one of his books. Let's call the parable of the madman and it just encapsulates everything that I've mentioned now. Have you not heard of the madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours? Ran into the marketplace and cried incessantly, I see God, I see God as many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then. He provoked much laughter. Did he get lost? Asked one? Did he lose his way like a child lost another? Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? Has he immigrated? Does he yell and laugh? The madman jumped into the midst and pierced him with his eyes. Where is God he cried? I will tell you. We have killed him, you and I. All of us are his murderers, but how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from the sun? Where is it moving now? Where are we moving away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually backwards, sideways, forward in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying as though and into an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is it not continually closing in on us? Do we need not lengthened to lights in the morning? Do we not hear nothing? Has yet the noise of crave diggers who are bearing God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine composition? God's too decomposed. God is dead. God remains dead and we have killed him. And this is the hearts of the atheists. This is the fool that has said in his heart there is no God. He seeks to kill God. He seeks to remove the voice of reason in society because it gives freedom to sin. It gives a way to sin because ideally what we want in our hearts to do what we will. And this is what David is speaking of here. Now, Psalm 10 verse 4 puts it this way. The wicked in his hortiness of his confidence does not seek him. And his thoughts are there is no God. So the deliberate slowness of God to act has a double effect. So it seems that God is delaying here. God is not acting, but it has two sided effects. For the righteous it causes distress. When we see God tearing, how long Lord we spoke about in the last hour, how long will you let us deal with this? How long do we have to see atheism rampant and running right in this earth? So it has the first effect causes distress. But for the wicked it confirms them in the evil doing. Of course he is doing nothing. Nothing will happen to us. If there is no consequence or there is no evidence consequence then a sinner will continue. Ecclesiastes 8 verse 11 says it this way. Because the sentence against the evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil. There is no consequence as we see here. Now, what I want us to understand here, we are looking at the fool. The fool who said it is not, no, that is somebody outside for us, contextually, right? Somebody other than us as we see it. But I want you to understand man's corruption. So the word corrupt is a very strong and speaks of utter and inward ruin. We look at Genesis 12. God looked on the earth and behold it was corrupt. For all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. And likewise we look at the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. We see the same thing. We see man and woman, young and old, surrounding the angels, how is trying to do things to them. And we see model decay. We see such bad model decay. And now we must understand something that all of us, each and every one of us, can't claim any model high ground business and who are better than the next. I was so convicted just last week that the Lord touched my heart that he made me realize that it's only by grace that I stand because of the things that I've done and thought. If you go look in Revelation and it says that the liars and the wicked and the fornicators in this and it gives a list of people who are sharing how they share in the lake of fire. And I find myself in a multitude of those. A multitude. If I wasn't finding those like okay, I'm good. I'm not as bad as those sinners. But if I were to look at that, about 20 different sins, I would find myself in more than half of those. I lied. I've fornicated. I've cheated. I've stolen. I've done all of those things. And I find myself in the lake of fire myself. So God convicted me of that and made me realize that I'm no better than anyone else. In the psalm it says that there's none who do good. No, not one. So in preachers say that all men are inherently good and we all generally good people. I've trouble with that, that we aren't good people. It is God who's good. We say it often from the pulpit. God is good all the time. All the time God is good and only he is good. Only God is good and is only by sharing in his fellowship that we become good. It is only by the process of sanctification where God changes us from wretchedness into righteousness that we become good. And it's only one day we'll be truly good and holy like he is holy on the day of justification when he changes us and we are just like him in a blinking of an eye. But right now I'm not good. I'm not good. It's only through him and outside of him I can do nothing. So man is corrupt. It is not the man outside. It is not only the fool who is judged. It is not only the fool but all of us outside of Christ if we do not know him or judged. So I want us to look at man's corruption. And so the same word that we see for corruption and we see in Genesis and we see in the inside of him in Gomorrah is mishat. M-I-S-H-A-E-T, H-A-T, N-S-U-S, but it's impregnated with hope as we see in the servant's song. So when you look at Isaiah 53, Isaiah 53 is a powerful passage. We know this very well. He was wounded by transgressions, bruised by iniquity, etc, etc. We know this passage very well, right? He's speaking about Christ. But this is part of a servant's song and it starts in chapter 22, 14 to 15 and continues into chapter 53. So literally translates it as corruption. When we look at that particular passage, he says his appearance was marred beyond recognition, right? If you go and look at 52, 14, and 15. And that word translates literally as corruption. So in 1 Corinthians 5, verse 21, "For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." Galatians 3, 13, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us." 1 John 3, verse 5. You know that he appeared in order to take away the sins and in him there is no sin. And what we see here in Isaiah 52 and 53 is saying that Christ became corrupted for our sake. He became corruption so that we can be redeemed. This is the work that Christ has done. This is the art of the gospel is that we are corrupt by nature. We are corrupt. We deserve eternal punishment. Each and every one of us are righteous, holy, pure God, corn, let sin go unpunished. It's like a judge letting somebody off of the hook. Oh, rapist, you're sorry. Okay, no problem. Go. The righteous judge cannot let sin go unpunished and is only by the forgiveness of sin by the blood of Jesus that we can be seen as righteous. So Christ in his sacrifice, in his work of propitiation on the cross, exchanging his righteousness for our fault became corruption for us. He became sin for us as the Bible says. He actually became sinny. He took upon every sin ever committed. Just today I can't even count the amounts of sins that have been amassed in this room. And this is what Christ took on for us every sin, past, present and future on his back, on his shoulders and became corruption for our sake. This is amazing. This is the heart of the gospel. And this is so powerful when you look at it. So God's assessment in Psalm 14 verse 1-2-3 is a sobering and reminded to us all and describes each and every one of us that we are all fools without Him. We are all fools without Him. He is wisdom and without Him we can do nothing. Verse 1 says that there is no one who does good. Verse 3 says there is no one who does good, not even one. Paul makes an argument when draws from Psalm 14 in Romans 3. He makes an argument in a discourse from Romans 1 up to Romans 3. And he concludes with the quoting of Psalm 14 and is charging both Jew and Gentile and saying that there is no one who is righteous. There is none among us, none among us who can claim to be righteous. So the moment we start feeling that moral high ground, I don't sin like he does. My sin is not as bad as he is. I've only murdered one person. Today is not as bad as him. It is all relative. We need to understand that there is none of us who are good. And it's only by being found in Christ. When you look at the New Testament, you'll find one thing that you'll see there. It's all says through Christ, in Christ, by Christ, for Christ. It is everything that we find in our lives without Him. We can do nothing. I couldn't wake up this morning. I said, Lord, I want to stay in bed. I couldn't even get up without Him. We've got to take away the breath that you breathe today. And we see the fullness of when Christ takes away every good thing because the rain falls in the chest. And just like even wretched people get to enjoy rain and sunshine and goodness and laughter of children and happy times and good meals. Everyone does, but we will see that taken away when we get into a revelation where you see the lake of fire, as I mentioned. There's no goodness, bottomness, blackness, weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth. Nothing good. No rest. First, that doesn't get quenched. There's nothing good there. And that is the fullness. So even for me getting up and complaining, Lord, I'm not well. But even that is grace to get up. Even having a shower every day, having a meal every day, that is the grace of God. And this is what we enjoy when we, when we understand what God does for us. So, verse 2, he says, "Do any understand? The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of men to see if there's any who understand who seek God." Now, we see a little bit of a shift. We see now a spectacular poetic reputation of the statement. So David is now refuting the statements of the first, saying that there is no God. Write the fullness here in his heart and basically countering it because this is God's assessment of the sinner, of the wicked man. David now refutes the first statement that there is no God when we see the introduction of God. Now, we see that the Lord looks down from heaven on the children of men. In fact, there is a God. God is there. The Lord himself makes a dress from heaven, from heaven's throne. And we see in the Psalms also it says that heaven is his throne and earth is his footstool. The Lord himself makes a dress from his throne in heaven. And this is what you call anthropomorphic to say that God now looks down, God doesn't have eyes. But he says he looks down. You're giving human qualities. He cranes his neck forward. He stretches his eyes as far as humanity can see. He looks at each of us and looks and sees that if there's any who understands who to seek after God. We see the same language in Genesis with Noah. He looks to and fro through earth to see if there's any or righteous that found one man. And there's a one man. Nobody else who was righteous and his family just came along by grace. And he's looking now. He cranes his neck forward and he's looking at earth from his throne. And you see now that he has a careful look below. As he did in Noah's day, even in the Tower of Babel, looking for those who are righteous, he looks to see if there's any understanding. As I mentioned, he doesn't look for anyone who is intelligent, anyone who has decrees, anyone who has muscles, anyone who has a nice car, he's not looking for any of that. He's looking for one thing. What's important to us and what's important to God is so vastly different. Because when we assess man, like we did see in the book of Samuel, when they went to find the new king and he went to Jesse's house. And he goes to Jesse and he says, "Bring your light, he's forward." And all of them come valiantly forward, standing there and he says, "It's one missing." And he says, "God, man looks on the outside and God looks on the inside. God knows what's inside of our hearts, whether we can bluff. Whether we say in our heart there's no God and outwardly bless you, brother. We'd love it. Have a wonderful day. God be with you, et cetera, et cetera. He just nothing God looks at the inside. God sees our hearts, he knows every corner, every dark corner of your heart, every nook and cranny, everything you've thoughts, every sinful thought you've had, everything that is vile and wicked in your mind and he still loves you regardless. And that is an amazing thing for us to understand that God knows the worst about you and still loves you the most. If your partner to find out about those things going in your mind, you'd be single in a heartbeat. But God loves you despite it all. He knows the foolishness that you're going to do tomorrow, and yet he still filtered it in when he was calculating this journey he's going to take with you from your mother's womb and sell your deathbed in you exactly what you're going to do, in you the foolishness, in you even that you're going to turn away from him in the backslide, but he's still calling you back. He's still gracious with you. He's still here to come. I still have room seeking why he may be found. This is the God that we serve. He's so gracious. Bible says that he loves mercy. He doesn't find someone who loves mercy. You can smack me in the face and it's okay. I still love you. I still do for you. It is more blessed to love your enemy than it is to love the ones that you love. It's easy to love your partner and love your kids but to love your enemy. This is our God. It says that even while we were yet sinners, while we were yet enemies of the cross, he loved us and he gave his life for us even if you never choose him. This is the God that we serve. And this is the God now that sits up on his throne, looks forward and looking for people who understand. He's looking for people across Psalm number one. Psalm one you feel remembers. He says, "How blessed is the man who does not walk in the council of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree firmly planted by the streams of water. He's looking for this person who delights in the law of the Lord. Day and night, as Aaron mentioned now that we obey his commands because we have to be obedient even if we don't understand. He's looking for those who just love his law even if he doesn't bless you. You're not looking for anything from him but we just love him. And this is what he's looking for. He's looking for anyone who understands. Anyone who shows prudence. Anyone who shows wisdom. Anyone who shows understanding because you can't look around at this world and say this is just by chance. This is just by chance. It just happened by the way. Evolution, big bang and then things came out. Promodial soup and things crawled out of the primordial soup and became birds and became monkeys and became fish. It is such a difficult thing to fathom. There's design behind this. We are exactly the right amount of degrees and distance from the sun just so that we don't burn. If we were a little bit further, we would freeze a little bit closer. We would burn with the earth. This tilted this, wisdom behind it, tilted it next so that we get seasons. There's wisdom in all of this. There's a mind, an intelligent mind, be all of this. You can't look at this and just choke it down. It's easier to, it's easier. Well, it's actually harder to believe to be an atheist than to be a Christian because the stretch to be an atheist and to believe there's no card is just too far. I'd rather believe in an intelligent designer who I can see and witness. So practical atheism in Psalm 10 verse 4, the wicked in his oughtiness of his countenance does not seek him. All these those are, there is no card. So you have two responses to this invisible card and that's the first one. There is no card or the second one. Psalm 9 verse 10, "For you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you." You can either seek God or reject him and this is the choice that we have on a daily basis. It might be something as simple as not trusting in card or not believing him fully where it's a command for us not to be anxious. It's not a suggestion when he says, "Do not be anxious for tomorrow, what you will wear, what you will eat." Because God even feeds the birds. That is not a suggestion. If you feel like it, no, it's a command. We are commanded to trust in God with all our hearts and strength and not lean alone understanding. So this is a form of all 39 God, but we have proof of God's existence. So we may not see God because any man who sees God will die, but we don't need to see him to believe in him. For blessed are those who believe without seeing. But in creation we have sufficient witness. God has left sufficient witness for himself. He's left his imprint, his signature on nature. Acts 14 verse 17 says it this way, "And yet he did not leave himself without witness. In that he did good and gave you reigns from heaven and fruitful season satisfying your hearts with food and gladness." So God has given us that as a witness for himself. Romans 1 verse 20 says, "For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen. Since being understood, what has been made so that they are not without excuse." 1 Corinthians says it this way, 11 verse 14, "Does nature not teach? Does nature not itself teach you?" We don't even need to look for. And that's why I find it. So prudence when we are in the countryside or in the mountains or somewhere around nature, that you feel closer to God, there's a connection. And something we've lost in the city life is when we are around concrete bricks and mortar that we forget God. I don't know what it is when we are around the city life and I've lived in big cities. I've been around and being in small little Peter Marisburg versus being in London or being in New York or anywhere else in the world that you find that atheism seems to be rifer in cities that it is in smaller towns. I don't know what it is, but when we are closer to nature, we are closer to God because nature testifies of God's goodness. There's such complexity. You look at spiders and see how many species they are. Look at fish and see how many species they are. Look at dogs. A hundred years ago, we didn't have 90% of the breed of dogs that we have. There's so much diversity. God spoke into existence a tree in Genesis, let there be. And that tree perpetually recreated itself, drop seeds and that tree grew into a tree and drop seeds. He didn't create any more water. He didn't create any more seeds. He didn't create any new animals. He created them there and they perpetually just made more and more. There's wisdom in this creation. Nature testifies of God's goodness. Pastor Israel is saying that even the sun preaches a message at every morning, no matter what. If you fail or if you succeed, the sun is preaching a message that God has faithful. The sun will be up tomorrow. It rises again in the morning. You fail. Somebody dies. God will be there tomorrow. God is faithful every morning. The sun is preaching the same message. God is faithful. We don't even need to look for. We look at nature and see what God has created. We don't learn anything new. Electricity comes from electric ills. We want to find that we created something. There's nothing new under the sun. God has created all things and perpetually reproduced them throughout time. A memorial God created once and never touched it again. I'm so amazing as God's creation. So we have proof of God's existence. We don't even need to look for. We don't need to see Him face to face. Blessed is He who believes without seeing. But we see His work. We see His providence in our lives. God has taken us through things that we should have died from. I was supposed to have died many times in my life. The enemy had planned evil for me, but God was there. It's only when you look back and you see if it had not been for God in my life. The people that are introduced into my life. The relationships He saved me from. The bad that He saved me from. This is only God's providence. We don't even need to look for us to see that God exists. He's looking for those who see God. So God's evaluation reminds us of the situation on the eve of the flood when God saw how corrupt the earth had become for all people on earth. And they corrupted their ways. Verse 4-6, and I'm just going to speedboat quickly through this while I just attempt to close in time. We see 4-6 is the oppression of the poor. Or in the contemporary context is the oppression of the church. Have they no knowledge, all evil doers, who eat up my people as they do bread and do not call upon the Lord. Oppression of the poor is nothing new. Oppression of the church is nothing new. We've seen the church being oppressed, but nothing like we've seen today. And I know there's been worse times with Christians or burns at the stake thrown into the lions, etc. And we see a different type of oppression. I think Satan is using different tactics now. We're not being thrown to lions because when they were thrown to lions, the church exploded. Go look what's happening in China. You see oppression. There is, like no other, go look in North Korea. For you to have a page of the Bible would mean to be executed. And what that North Korean regime does is that if you are found of anything guilty, your family into perpetuity is punished. So your children will be put into labor camps. When they have children, their children are put into labor camps just for having a Bible. This is the extent of the persecution that you find, but you find that their church is growing exponentially. But yet we can't even wake up on a Sunday because the fight is on or something is happening. It is a pride today. We can't attend church, but you see these people are attending church at the threat of death. The church is exploding millions upon millions upon millions in China because China don't have religious freedom. They squash everything. They squash Islam. They squash Christianity. It doesn't matter. The oppression of the church is nothing new. And we're going to see this becoming more evidence, especially in our secular South Africa. We think it's a Christian country, but we live in a secular country. I mentioned it before, even they took away the Holy Spirit's first art of the national anthem. We are a secular country. We're the first African country to legalize gay marriage. We are the forefront in Africa in terms of all of these unjust views and laws that are happening. That's beside the point. So the Psalmist is amazed at the ignorance of the wicked. They persecute the righteous and put. So they eat them up like bread. It's basically nothing for them. It's a daily thing. It's like they don't feel bad. They don't feel guilty for pressing the poor or pressing the church. They oppress them. The oppression of God's people is a common thing. As common as eating bread, they ignore God. Although he is very present in his people's lives rather than fearing God, they trade him. "Who eat my people up his bread, and do not call upon the Lord," verse 5, "there they are in great dread." For God is what the righteous generation is. This is where the encouragement starts in the Psalm now. He starts wrapping it up. Verse 6, "You who put to shame the counsel of afflicted, but the Lord is his refuge." So have they no knowledge? This point is the truth that when David is saying, "there they are in great dread." It's like David is pointing a finger to the judgments who come in saying, "There these people are in great dread because there is a date that we are going to have with our maker." Each and every one of us, and we've mentioned this timeless times from the pulpit, that this is a truth that's irrefutable that we can't dance around. We can preach all the nice messages about grace and love and abundance and all of these nice things and not neglect the components of judgment that is to come. There's a judgment that's coming. And for those who are not in Christ get to face judgment and those who are in Christ get to hear those envious words, well done, good and faithful servants. But for those wicked men persecute the church who say that there's no God, we reject Him at every turn. Because why would God want to take you to heaven when you don't want Him here? Because heaven is just more of the same. If we can't worship on earth, how are we going to worship even in heaven? If we can't fellowship with God here, we don't want Him now. We don't love Him now. What's going to change? What's going to change even if God offers sinners in hell to say, "Listen, I'll take you out." They would curse their fists and shake their fists at Him and say, "We don't want you. You are tyrant. You are liar." And all of the things that are here on social media. This is the heart of the sinner. Unregenerated sinner is that they don't want God. Nothing's going to change in hell. Nothing will change in heaven. We need to love Him now and we need to want Him now. And when we go to heaven, we'll just have the fullness of that. So, David is pointing as you can. You can kind of see He's saying, "There. There is the place of judgment." So, they will be seen. They are there. And so, as they casually despise the church, they are in great terror. And he closes and says that God is with the generation of the righteous. Romans 8.31 says, "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?" Romans 8.33, who will bring a charge against God's elect? Romans 8.34, who is the one who condemns? Romans 8.35, who will separate us from the love of Christ? We have no doubts in our minds that God is for us as bad as it gets. If you are alone in persecution and you are facing the dead penalty, no matter what it is, how bad it gets, we need to have the sociality that God is with us. We have the Creator of heaven and earth. The alpha and the omega, the ancients of days, the beginning and the end. No one can hold a comparison to him. Satan isn't worthy adversary for God. It's not like you have God and Satan on the same level. Mike Tyson and Jake Paul, they aren't on the same level. God is so far above anyone even Satan. Satan is a lap dog to God that he can't even do anything without God's authority. See Job that he had to present himself. Where have you been, Job? He had to present himself. Satan is nothing compared to God. We have this God where it says in Romans that who will bring a charge against God's elect? Who is the one who condemns? Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Nothing. Nothing. No debt, no breath, no height. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. And we need to have the sociality that no matter how we get oppressed, God is with us. Through it all, you will may lose a job that your whole very dear to yourself and feel like your life is crashing. You may lose a partner that has promised you the world and feel like your world is crashing. You may lose a loved one to death and feel like your world is crashing. You may be diagnosed with an incurable disease and feel like everything is crashing around you. But family, when I tell you that God is with us, if God is for us, who can be against us? If you are with God, we understand that there is hope. There is hope. People who die without Christ, there is no hope for them. And this is the hope that we carry. And this is what the Psalmist is saying. So Jesus Christ was himself the object of all the hatred that we see in verse 4 and 6, eating him up like bread. He himself sought God's refuge. He was the poor man who came in with great humility and plans to save. Those who killed him tried and tried their plans with disgrace but failed. And finally in verse 7, the desiring restoration says that, "Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion. When the Lord restores his caps of people, Jacob will rejoice." So the Psalm starts with the lament but doesn't end in despair. But rather, there is a note of hope and confidence. In the first colon of the verse, he expresses his wish for salvation from the dangerous post by the corruption of humanity. Reference to Zion, of course, speaks to the Lord. And he is the salvation coming from Christ. And the final two callers here in the verse reveal that he has no doubt that the day of rescue will come. David is confident that God will rescue his people. Those saints who died waiting for the Savior weren't put to shame when he came and pulled them out of captivity. He says that he led captivity captive. The lights of Moses and the old school prophets, he led them out. He had led them out. So those who put their trust in Christ will not be put to shame. So just in closing, I just want to make a couple of notes as we close. Romans 3, 10 to 12, makes it very clear that our first response to reading Psalm 14 should be deep and daily repentance. This drives us urgently to Christ for our refuge. We have no safety. We have no security. Your pension, your millions, whatever you put your faith in. Some trust in horses, some trust in chariots, but we will put a trust in the Lord. And Psalm 14 just reminds us that our refuge is Christ. Our refuge is Christ. Second point that I want to close with you, if we trusted Christ, in Psalm 14, verse 1, 2, 3, should warn us of the insidious whisper of our heart. There is no God. Or at least no God will see this action and hear these words and perceive our imaginations. For this whisper lowers us to surrender to countless temptations. We are often tempted to say that there is no God because this frees us up to do what we want to do as I mentioned. At the roots of our corruption lies a heart that does not have a nature to seek after God moment by moment. This is just how we are built. We must cry to God for a fresh work of the Holy Spirit who alone can restore us and restore our own hearts in the image of His son, the second Adam. As Jeremiah says, the heart is wicked and deceitful above all else. Who can know it? We can't trust our hearts. Some of the worst advice you can get is trust your heart. Don't trust your heart. The heart is sitting. You sit in your heart that there is no God. And we whisper that to ourselves slowly until it becomes full blown atheism. The main thrust of Psalm 14 is to bring comfort to the persecuted Church of Christ. The context of Romans 3 is of unbelievers within the nominal people of God. John Calvin writes of wickedness breaking forth and prevailing in the midst of the church and says this sad spectacle almost completely disheartens us. The terrible ascitation of Psalm 14 verse 1 to 3 guarantees a sure and terrible judgment for the finally impenitent world. So those who don't repent, there's a judgment coming. We may be sure that the corrupt children of men will one day be defeated by the Psalm one man who is the Psalm two king and the Psalm eight second Adam. This son of man will rule the new heaven and the new earth as a covenant head of humanity. So we have hope, we have faith. And lastly, when we attempted to focus on only our private troubles, David's concern and supremely Christ's concern for the welfare of the church or to direct us to pray our yearnings outwardly for the whole Church of Christ. And finally, just as all the ancients prayed Psalm 14 verse 7, they were longing that one day Christ would come. We too now pray for His returning glory. So families are just recoup and cover that the fooler said in his heart there is no God. We say in our heart that there is a God. We profess outwardly that we believe and we worship the true and living God, who is the moral law giver, the moral law keeper, the judge of all humanity and the closer we get to him, we realize that his laws aren't burdensome to us. His laws aren't heavy, his burden is light and his yoke is easy. So obey God is not a heavy burden. It's not a heavy burden, there is no need for us to kill God in our hearts because his moral laws are like boundaries for us. Like we sit with children, don't do that, you're going to get hurt. They're falling at hurt, I told you not to do that. God does something similar, don't stay away from those people. Don't do that thing, don't compromise yourself. Be righteous, walk uprightly, be holy as I am holy. This is the God that we serve. He doesn't intend evil for us, his intentions are only good for us because I know the plans that I have for you declare the Lord. This is the God that we serve, let us not be foolish, let us be wise, and if we lack wisdom, let us pray to the Lord. We love God, we love his word and I was just really encouraged by the Psalm and encouraged and it's just been playing him out that the fooler said in his heart there is no God. How do I not be foolish? And I draw near it to him, draw an eye into him and he will draw an eye into you. Scripturalist says seek him while he may be found. So for those of us who don't know Christ, let us seek him while he may be found because there's a time that he won't be found. For God is gracious, he gives us second chances, third chances, fourth chances, and a hundred chances. This is the gracious Lord that we serve who loves mercy and loves kindness. So if I'm going to pray that you're blessed, pray that you're blessed by the Psalm and I'm going to ask...