It's become fashionable these days to say that there is no God. It's a bit of a modern fad. For example, Richard Dawkins: "We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." Or the actress Emma Thompson says: "It's not enough to say that I don't believe in God. I actually regard the system as distressing. I am offended by some of the things in the Bible and in the Quran, and I refute them."
Or the 99-year-old Sir David Attenborough: "It never really occurred to me to believe in God, and I had nothing to rebel against. My parents told me nothing whatsoever. But I do remember looking at my headmaster delivering a sermon—a classicist, extremely clever—and thinking, 'He can't really believe all that, can he? How incredible.'”
And then Daniel Radcliffe, known for his role in Harry Potter: "I'm not religious. I'm an atheist—and a militant atheist when religion starts impacting on legislation.” … when it starts to tell you what you may and may not do!
Psalm 14 says that the person who thinks like that is a fool. So Richard Dawkins, Emma Thompson, David Attenborough, Daniel Radcliffe—I have huge respect for all of them in their professional life. They are the most amazingly talented and gifted people, some of the cleverest people on the face of this planet. And yet Psalm 14 would say they are also amongst the most foolish.
Now, if you go back 3,000 years to when Psalm 14 was written, atheism back then was a practical thing, not a philosophical thing. Nobody really would, in their head, go, I don't think there are any gods. Everybody believed gods existed. No, it was a practical atheism that says, Of course there are gods out there. Everyone knows that. But I don't think they actually exist as far as my life is concerned. They make no impact on the way that I live.
You'll notice it says in verse one that the fool says in his heart that there is no God. Now, in Bible thinking, the heart is the seat of the will—it's where you make your choices. So it's saying, As I make my choices day by day, God does not feature. Every decision I make, as I make it, I remind myself there is no God—so I can do as I wish.
Now, one of the things we love about this church is we have a really good number of people who come week by week who are not yet Christians. They're still looking into and investigating the Christian faith. And before I say the next thing I'm going to say, let me just say how much we love you being here. Okay? We are thrilled, because we love Jesus, and you're on the path to discovering the most amazing person who has ever lived and is still alive. We really love you, because we love him, and we love bringing the two of you together.
But having said all of that, Psalm 14 says: "In refusing to believe practically that there is a God, you are also amongst the most foolish people to have ever lived." I'm afraid this is saying you're a fool. And that's not an easy thing to hear, but that is the bold reality of Psalm 14:1.
And what I want to show you through the rest of Psalm 14 is how it goes on to justify that outrageously offensive statement and put some flesh onto it.
Most of us here, though, are Christians. That doesn't let us off the hook. Because if you're a Christian, that doesn't make you immune from going through seasons of life, or moments in each day, when you live, at that moment, as if God has no impact on you and on your life. So it's very easy to make certain decisions, have certain days, when we temporarily live as though there were no God.
And brothers and sisters in Christ, you may be Christians, but at that moment when you're doing that, that is extremely foolish. And you are being a fool.
So actually, we all need to hear this—wake us up as to why it is that we are sometimes doing that, and that it is a completely foolish thing to do. And we need that conviction lodging deeply, so that we do not live as fools in God's world.
And Psalm 14 tells us why that is. And Psalm 14 gives you three places where you find God, where you meet him and encounter him. And as you see that, you realise actually the really smart, the really good thing to do is to follow him and live as though he's very much there.
1. God sees from heaven (1-3)
So here's the first place then that you would find God in Psalm 14. It's in verses 1 to 3, where we discover that God sees from heaven.
The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."
They are corrupt; their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.
The Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.
All have turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.
Do you even notice how staccato that poetry is? There's no sense of fluffing this up—it's just boom, boom, boom, boom. That's the bold reality of it.
Now it says that God looks down from heaven. Now, the word there for "looking down" is a relatively uncommon word, and it's the word used in a number of narratives in the Old Testament for someone looking out of a window. Queen Jezebel's story would be one example. There are others. But regardless if you know the examples, there's the picture almost of God having to stretch his neck and peering out and looking down from heaven at everything that's going on down on the earth beneath.
I had the good fortune, many, many years ago—more than I will give you the number of—that I worked in an office block on the edge of, just off Marble Arch in central London. We were in the—about 21-storey building, I think we were on the eighth floor—and the views on two sides of that building were looking straight down over the northeastern quadrant of Hyde Park. And it was just lovely as a view if you just want, sort of, two minutes of refocus away from a screen—just to go and look down. And you can see people having a picnic, kids playing with a ball, you can see people erecting screens because there's going to be a concert in Hyde Park in a few weeks’ time. You can see people going for a jog, people on rollerblades—and you can just watch life in Hyde Park, a city central park. Beautiful scene to look down.
And that is the picture of God here—looking down from heaven and just watching everything going on. It's very much not true to say that God is not there. He sees everything.
But what does he see as he looks down on the Hyde Park of our world? Well, he sees that there is not a single person who does good. Maybe if you thought it was offensive to be called a fool, you think it's even more offensive to be told that you don't do anything good. But that is what God sees.
The very fact we cannot see God should make us seek after him. And in a couple of places in the Book of Acts, it's very clear that God has given us ample evidence in the hope that we will do exactly that. But instead of seeking after him, we deliberately turn away. All have turned away, down to the last man, woman, and child.
Now, what that turning away looks like is very vivid language. It touches who we are: We are corrupt. It touches what we do: Our deeds are vile, as we turn to go through life in completely the wrong direction.
Now, this word where it says they are corrupt in verse 3—I'm told (I speak no Arabic)—I'm told that the Arabic equivalent of that word is the word used for when milk has gone sour. We've become just like soured milk—just gone off and not really fit for very much.
A number of years ago we were on holiday in a sort of holiday park in part of Holland—the Netherlands. And on the last day of our holiday, we'd run out of milk for our breakfast. So I got the job of being sent to the shop on the holiday park to buy some milk. So I came back with a carton of milk.
Let me tell you, it was not a pleasant experience on our breakfast, because little did I know that what I had bought was soured milk. Now, I speak no Dutch—that was the problem. Nobody else in the family did. But I just thought, Milk is milk. What can go wrong? Who needs to Google Translate a carton of milk? And it was only later, when I got my phone out and photographed—Oh.
But seriously, what kind of holiday park thinks, I know what we'll put in our little miniature, little corner shop on-site that has double prices—we'll put some buttermilk, because everybody's going to want that on holiday! I mean, the mind just boggles.
I'm sure Dutch culture is lovely. And if you're Dutch yourself, I do apologise for insulting your national delicacy, but it really was not what you wanted on your breakfast. Corrupt.
The word for there is no occurs four times in the psalm. This is quite striking, okay?
Verse one: The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." But what's the reality? Well, verse one: There is no one who does good. Verse three: There is no one who does good. And then, literally, not even one—also, there is not one. God's saying: You think God does not exist? "There is no God"? Ha! You don't exist. What does not exist is the righteous version of you that you like to think is there. What does not exist is the righteous version of anybody. I'm here—but ever so good you—just doesn't exist. You are the one who is a myth.
Now, he says not one. Since this was written, there has been one and only one: the Lord Jesus Christ.
Here's another little bit of language in verse 2: The Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind.
Mankind. Now, one of the things I love about our NIV Bibles is that they take great care not to introduce gendered language when it's not meant to be that way. So perhaps an ancient language might just use the word sons, but that means just sons, daughters, anybody. So it will deliberately just say children, to avoid confusing you by making you think it's only about men. They've done the same thing here: all mankind—gender-neutral. But actually, literally: sons of man, or even if you want to get super-literal: sons of Adam.
Well, that's not meant to be gendered. If you like the C. S. Lewis Narnia stories, you know how they could have translated it—but it would have been far too waffly: The Lord looks down from heaven on all the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve.
So this says: The sons of man are corrupt. Now, this is far, far, far from the beautiful vision we had in Psalm 8—not one of the psalms we looked at in this little preaching series on the Psalms, because we can't do all of them. But in Psalm 8, the son of man was made to rule the natural world and to take good care of it as God's representatives on earth.
Well, we're very far from that vision. We aren't the dignity of doing a good job—we're a corrupt mess. The sons of man—until Jesus came. And one of his favourite titles for himself was the Son of Man. He is the one exception who breaks out of this pattern in Psalm 14.
And this is what we are all like by nature. We had part of Romans 3 read for us earlier. Romans 3:11–12 quotes the first two verses of this psalm to show us how much we need the Lord Jesus Christ. And by God's grace, he invites a corrupt people like us to find forgiveness in Jesus—to become his special people who take refuge in God, and so come to experience the blessing and the kindness of God, instead of the judgement that we deserve for treating him in the ways that we do.
So there's one way we can live as though there is no God. We can reject his laws—but God sees from heaven.
2. God sides with his people (4-6)
“Do all these evildoers know nothing? They devour my people as though eating bread. They never call on the Lord. But there they are, overwhelmed with dread, for God is present in the company of the righteous. You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor, but the Lord is their refuge.”
So here's the second way of living as though there is no God: to oppress God's people, to devour God's people. Verse four: literally, eating my people — they eat bread, which might mean they eat God's people as easily as someone eats a slice of toast. It might mean they can eat God's people and then sit down to a three-course meal, as though what they've just done — killing God's people — is just a routine matter. Or it may even mean that they earn their living, their daily crust, by killing God's people.
But regardless of exactly how those two halves of the sentence fit together, it's just vicious: oppressing God's people to the point of devouring them in the way that you would devour a piece of toast.
But what they weren't expecting, having done that, is what happened next. What happened next is they are filled with terror. Verse five says, they were... they are overwhelmed with dread.
Now, you get a tiny, tiny foretaste of that in Acts chapter 5, where the new Christians — Jesus has not long been risen and returned to heaven — and ordinary people who are not Christians did not dare to join the Christians as they gathered together.
But this is much, much bigger than that. The terror is deep: overwhelmed with dread. You see, they thought that Christians were just easy pickings. They're not going to fight back. They're a passive lot. They're pretty weak and unimpressive. Yeah, bump them off. All good.
But then notice the word there. There they are overwhelmed with dread — literally, at the moment they've just done it, they go, "Oh no, I've done the wrong thing." They suddenly realise their terrible mistake. And they are terrified.
Today is Pentecost Sunday. Remember Peter preaching to the crowds on the day of Pentecost, telling them that the bloke they've just killed is the one that God has now appointed King of the universe. And Acts chapter 2 says that when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said, "What should we do?"
Now, ultimately, the real terror of that will not be felt until the last day, when Jesus returns.
But why are they so scared? What is it that scares them about what they've just done?
Well, because God is with them. God is present in the company of the righteous. God is intentionally present. God is with us. And God is for us.
Romans 8 verse 31: What should we say about this? If God is for us, who can be against us?
I'd like you to meet Brenda the Buzzard. Okay, I don't know whether you saw this in the news this week — Brenda the Buzzard has been causing trouble at Dame Tipping Primary School in East London. Okay? Dame Tipping.
The children at Dame Tipping Primary School have had to be kept inside during breaks this week because there is a buzzard that sits on a fence at the edge of the playground and, for fun, likes divebombing the children and attacking them. So I'm afraid it's wet play every day, no matter how much the sun is shining.
Primary schools will do what primary schools will do. So this becomes an opportunity to draw pictures of Brenda the Buzzard, to write imaginary stories of Brenda the Buzzard, to make collages of Brenda the Buzzard out of scrunched-up tissue paper — and that becomes the curriculum for the week.
They even got a falconer in to bring a different species of buzzard, so the children could experience what these birds of prey look like close up. So well done to Dame Tipping Primary School for managing it.
They sought advice from the RSPCA to wonder: what do we do? Because buzzards are highly protected. You can't shoot them. You wouldn't want to shoot them. And the answer they got was this: probably Brenda the Buzzard has a nest very close by and is protecting her chicks.
God is for us. But why is God with us? Why is God on our side if we're so corrupt?
Well, notice how we are described in verse five: God is present in the company of the righteous.
Now, this does not mean the company of the righteous — let's gather together all the righteous people, gather on a Sunday morning — and God's going to look at us and go, "You're such a lovely lot, I've got to be with you."
No, we know from verses 1 to 3 that's not true. It's only by God's grace that we get to be a part of God's people. No — the clue here is that the word righteous is singular. It's not the company of the righteous ones. It's the company of the righteous one.
We are the people of Jesus. God the Father is on Jesus’ side, which means he's on our side. If you take us on, you are taking on Jesus. You are taking on God's Son.
Why is it so terrifying when people attack the people of God? Because God will defend his nest, his chicks — and that's us.
So don't live as though God's not there. He sees from heaven. He sides with his people. So rather than fighting God's people, make sure you're one of those that he sides with.
3. God saves from Zion (7)
And Then Our Third Section: The Third Place We Find God Is in Verse Seven — God Saves from Zion
This is the third reason why we shouldn't pretend there is no God.
Now, this is a beautiful verse. It gives us insight into the heart of King Jesus. But let's start with King David. King David, remember, wrote this, according to the little italicised bit at the top of the psalm. And this verse expresses his deep longing.
That language "Oh, that..." is what comes out of the deepness of his emotion and feeling — it's what he really longs for. What does he long for? That salvation for Israel would come out of Zion.
Now grammatically, the emphasis here is on the Zion bit. So it's not that David knows that God's rescue will come from Zion and he just kind of wishes that it would come — that God would save. No, it's that David knows his people — and God's people — are oppressed all the time. David knows that God will come to their rescue. What he longs for is that when that rescue comes, the place it will come from is Zion.
Now, where is Zion? Zion is the hill on which Jerusalem was built. It's where Psalm 2 said King David would reign. It's where Psalm 2 said that David's greater Son would reign. So David knows that God will save his people, but he longs for someone from his family to be the person who will do it. Would me and my family please be the place from which your rescue will come?
Now, that's when David prayed this psalm. What about when Jesus would have prayed this psalm?
Jesus would have been longing for God's people to be saved. But more than that, he longs for him to be the one to do it.
In 1993, Somalia was in civil war. UN aid was sent in, but was being seized by local warlords. So in August ’93, the United States sent in some special forces to protect the aid and to crack down on these local warlords.
And that led to October the 3rd, 1993 — the first Battle of Mogadishu — during the course of which two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down.
And the problem was, they could see that the ground forces that were already on the ground were not going to make it to the crash site of the second helicopter before the militants got there. And with the militants closing in on the crash site, they knew that the helicopter crew would be massacred in a cruel and public way.
Now, there were two soldiers by the names of Gary Gordon and Randall Sugart who asked their superiors for permission to be dropped onto the ground near the crash site to see if they could go and save that crew. Their request was turned down — too dangerous.
So they asked a second time. Turned down. They asked a third time — and they were given permission.
So they were dropped 100 metres from the crash site. They fought their way through to where the helicopters were. They found that two of the crew had died in the crash, but the rest were still alive. And they were able, simply fighting with one sniper rifle and one pistol, to establish a perimeter and hold it around the helicopter.
But eventually, they ran out of ammunition and both of them died.
The crew of the helicopter — what happened to them? Well, they were taken hostage, but later they were rescued. And if it had not been for Gordon and Sugart, all of that crew would have died.
They were given an award for their bravery. And here's what it says: Gordon and Sugart knew their own chances of survival were extremely bleak. The pilot of their helicopter said that anyone in their right mind would never have gone in. But they insisted on it because there were comrades in danger, because they believed passionately in the creed that says: "I will not fail those with whom I serve."
Former President Bill Clinton was present at the award for their bravery. And Bill Clinton said this: "Gary Gordon and Randall Sugart died in the most courageous and selfless way any human being can act. They risked their lives without hesitation."
They wanted to see their comrades — the crash survivors — saved. But more than that, they really wanted to be the ones to do it. And so they offered themselves three times, knowing that there was no chance they would make it out alive themselves.
Well, Jesus’s longing to be the one to save us — God answered. He died on a cross in Jerusalem. He rose again from the dead in Jerusalem. And he brought salvation to all of his people.
But now he's not here on earth. He's in heaven. And as he's in heaven, God's people continue to face oppression and to face persecution. And so this verse continues to be his prayer and continues to be the deep longing of his heart.
And one day he will return. And when he returns, all oppression will cease.
Just listen to 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 6, which says:
“God is just. He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you, and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
And we can pray this psalm with Jesus. We can pray for the Church where it's most persecuted in certain parts of the world. And we can also pray for Jesus to return and to bring an end to all the trouble.
So what a fool you would have to be to say that there is no God — or to believe in your head that he exists, but your heart makes all of your choices as if he doesn't.
God sees from heaven, and he sees very much what we do. It's not good.
God sides with his people. He's with you. He's for you.
God saves from Zion.
Which means we don't pretend he doesn't exist.
So rejoice!
So what do we do? Well, have a little look at the end of verse seven. This is not just for when God restores his people. This last line of verse seven is actually a sentence all on its own. So this is for every season — but probably not where you thought this psalm was going to end up. Actually, a slightly surprising end.
"Let Jacob rejoice! Let Israel be glad!"
That's what you do in response. God exists. He's real. He sees everything. He's for us. He's saved us. And he will save us.
And that is great news. So let's rejoice and be glad.