SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 01/01/2012
My Worship Time Focus: Psalm 14
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm 14
Message of the verses: “1 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. 2 The LORD
has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men To see if there are any who
understand, Who seek after God. 3 They have all turned aside, together they
have become corrupt; There is no one who does good, not even one. 4 Do all the workers of wickedness not know,
Who eat up my people as they eat bread, And do not call upon the Lord? 5 There
they are in great dread, For God is with the righteous generation. 6 You would
put to shame the counsel of the afflicted, But the LORD is his refuge. 7 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.”
Sometimes
when you look at the briefness of a Scripture Passage before starting to dig
into it you think that there is not a lot of learning from such a short
passage. That is not the case with Psalm
14 and for that matter Psalm 53 for they are almost identical and when we get
to Psalm 53 there will be little left to talk about after going over Psalm 14
in some detail.
When
April the first rolls around each year we are always trying to fool someone by
playing a trick on them. When someone
has asked if the atheists have a holiday people often say that April first is
their holiday because of what it says in verse one of this psalm “The fool has
said in his heart, ‘there is no God.’”
As I was looking over the commentary from Dr. Wiersbe’s writings on this
psalm he picks up on that by outlining this psalm using the characteristics of
the “practical atheists.”
Before
doing this we must understand that this psalm goes along with Psalms 10 and 12
as these three psalms present a very vivid picture of the ungodly. In Psalm 10 we see their proud attitudes, and
in Psalm 12 we see their deceitful words, and now in Psalm 14 we will see their
corrupt deeds.
Willful Folly—They Ignore God (vv. 1-3): “1 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. 2 The LORD
has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men To see if there are any who
understand, Who seek after God. 3 They have all turned aside, together they
have become corrupt; There is no one who does good, not even one.”
We get or English
word for fool from a Latin word that means “bellows” and this suggests that the
fool is a person who is full of hot air.
However there are three basic words in the Hebrew language for
fool. Kesyl the dull, stupid fool; ewiyl,
the unreasonable and perverted fool; and nabal,
the bestial person who is like a stubborn animal. We find the word nabal as our word for fool
in Psalm 14. When we look at the story
of Nabal and Abigail in 1Samuel we get the picture of the fool that is being
spoken about in Psalm 14, for here is a man who surely lived up to his name for
Nabal was a great example of a fool.
“The
American evangelist Billy Sunday used to say that sinners can’t find God for
the same reason criminals can’t find policemen—they aren’t looking.” (From Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary on Psalm
14) He goes on to say, “Nabal fools are self-righteous and don’t
need or want God. They want to live
their own lives the way they please.
Their problem is willful ignorance and not lack of normal
intelligence. But this decision causes
sad consequences in both their character and their conduct. By leaving God out of their lives, they cause
their inner person to become more and more corrupt—the heart (v-1), the mind
(vv. 2,4), and the will (v-3).”
The
indictment that David gives here by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is
universal as we see these words repeated in Paul’s letter to the Romans where
he is making the point that all people in this world are guilty before God and
the only way that they can ever be saved from their sinfulness is through the
grace of God through Jesus Christ and His work on the cross to save sinners.
Dr.
Wiersbe describes human depravity by writing “Human depravity doesn’t mean that
all persons are as wicked as they can be, or that all are equally bad, or that
no man or woman can ever do anything good (Luke 11:13). It simply means that all have a fallen nature
they cannot change, and that apart from the grace of God, none can be saved
from eternal judgment.”
Sudden Fear—They Meet God (vv. 4-6): “4 Do all the workers of wickedness not
know, Who eat up my people as they eat bread, And do not call upon the Lord? 5
There they are in great dread; For God is with the righteous generation. 6 You
would put to shame the counsel of the afflicted, But the LORD is his refuge.”
Let’s explain the
phrase “Who eat up my people as they eat bread,” first of all as we look at
this section. Dr. Wiersbe writes that
this phrase is a biblical metaphor for exploiting the helpless and is seen in
other places of the Scriptures like Psalm 27:2; 35:25; 55:4; Mic 3:1-3; Lam.
2:16; and see Isa. 3:12, Jer. 10:25; Amos 2:6-8, and Mic. 2:2 And 7:3.
Dr.
Wiersbe quotes a British philosopher Bertrand Russell when asked what he would
say if when he died what would he say to God and he replied, “You did not give
us sufficient evidence!” This answer is
hard to believe and makes me think of the quote by Billy Sunday that is seen
above, and that is that this philosopher was not looking for any evidence that
God does exist, and put his blind faith in circumstances like evolution, and
not seeing the creation that God has made in things like the heavens for Psalm
19:1 reads as follows, “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their
expanse is declaring the work of His hands.”
There is as much evidence that God created everything in this world of
ours and this universe that we live in to hold people accountable to the God
who created all of this, but people don’t want to hear this.
It
is not made clear as to what time David was speaking of in verse seven, but to
be sure when it does happen the Lord will judge the foolish people that David
is writing about in this psalm.
Joyless Future—They Have No God (v. 7): “7 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.”
We know that the
salvation of Israel did come out of Zion in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Son of God and the Son of man through David’s line. We know that in the future that God will
restore Israel from captivity and this could very well mean what Paul writes
about in “Ro 11:26 and so all Israel
will be saved; just as it is written, ‘THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION, HE
WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB.’”
This will happen during the tribulation period when all Israel will
finally see that Jesus is their Messiah.
As
far as the wicked are concerned Dr. Wiersbe writes, “Those who reject Jesus
Christ will spend eternity apart from the Lord and will honestly be able to say
in hell, ‘There is no God—here.’”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I have always liked the New Year’s holiday
because I can look back on the things that happened in the year that just
passed and then take time to pray about things that I want to accomplish in the
New Year. Staying faithful to my walk with
the Lord by continuing to be ready to accomplish the things that He has for me
to do in this New Year and to continue to be faithful in my devotions, posting
them on the blog every day. Most of my
goals are in the spiritual realm, because that is the most important part of me
and everyone else for we are not human beings walking through a temporary
spiritual existence, but we are spiritual beings going through a temporary
human experience.
Psalm
14 shows me how much the Lord loves me by taking me out of the world system
that is described here and giving me the salvation that can only come through
the grace of God.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1. Trust
the Lord will use me to bring glory to His name in 2012.
2. Continue
to learn contentment in 2012.
3. Continue
to grow in the knowledge of the Lord in 2012.
1/1/2012 9:32:09 AM
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