Psalm 14

Man is a great creature, but He needs to worship the Creator who is so very far above Him. God created man in His own image. Man is the singular image-bearer of the One who is the glorious Source of all life. Yet man is only an image, and nothing can be right if he insists on launching an attack against God by challenging the authority of the Lord.

If you had a son who somehow learned disobedience, this attack against parental authority might show up in many different ways. Your son might be slow to obey. When he was caught in some violation of your wishes, he might make excuses rather than admit his own guilt. He might argue every instruction that you gave him, or speak against you, or insist that you hated him. But what if he just denied that you existed? That would be the worst insult.

This is what the fool does with God. He should worship Him and bow before Him, but in his heart he says, “There is no God.”

Everyone knows that there is a God. All around us and even within us there is ample testimony to the majesty and power of the Uncaused Cause. Yet the one who will not worship the Lord insists on the foolish and insulting pretense that there simply is no God. Can something come from nothing? There has to be a Source of being.

Not only do we see His fingerprints in a world of order, beauty, goodness, truth and justice; we also observe the brokenness of our current condition and we wonder. This meditation should also lead us to God as we call out to Him for answers that only He can give. We also have the mysterious testimony within us of the longing of our hearts for something beyond this life and for a more perfect ending to the story of existence that befitting such a powerful and good being as the One who is.

All of this is not enough for the fool to profitably consider. Why? He is like that child who will not bow the knee to any superior. Created with such great ability and potential, he will not permit any rivals. He cannot seem to live at peace with creation, and He will not worship the Lord. He gives God the ultimate insult. He does not even believe that He exists.

This is a deliberate cover-up strategy in the face of his own guilt and corruption. He wanted his own way, and it has led to unclean thoughts, bad deeds, and destructive consequences. This is the way of one who will not acknowledge God. In our fallen nature, this is the condition of all men.

The Lord looks down from heaven on His great creature. Is there anyone that does good? Is there anyone who understands the true nature of the breach between heaven and earth, the way to peace with God and the restoration of lost blessings of life? Is there anyone who is able to give up his childish rebellion against His Maker and seek after the Lord?

No. Not one. If God did not seek us first, we would never even begin to seek Him. The way to life has to come from Someone outside us working inside us. The way worshipers are reclaimed and restored, and the way that heaven and earth will one day be reunited, must come from God.

If you want to see proof of this all around you, look at the way that those who have not been brought to the sincere worship of the Lord think of others who have been claimed as the Lord's redeemed. Look at the history of Israel and the church. Look at the seeds of hypocrisy and murderous rebellion even among those who make a show of their religious righteousness, but then deny the power and mystery of godliness. Look at those who cling to religious life as their own possession, a means of earthly gain. How do they treat the humble worshipers of the Lord who would get in their way by speaking the truth in love?

Hypocrites may claim to understand the secrets of heaven and earth, but they have no knowledge. They may parade their self-proclaimed righteousness for everyone to see, but they have forgotten mercy and the weightier matters of the Law. They refuse to remember that people were all created in the image of God and that they should honor them with respect and dignity because of the Creator. They treat God's redeemed as if they were bread to be eaten according to their own pleasure. They do not honestly call upon the Lord. They may profess to love Him with their lips, but they deny Him every day with their lives.

This is not just about some people. This is the natural state of all people after the Fall. And this is the world that Jesus came into in order to work a glorious salvation. How was he treated by men? He was God in the hands of angry sinners. They wanted to kill Him. Yet it was in that death that He willingly gave Himself as an offering for sin that was acceptable to the Father. In Him, God has been claiming a people from the days of Adam to the present. Through this obedient Son of God all Israel will be saved, even those from the nations of the world that now call upon His Name.

Our salvation could never have come from our own goodness. Without the atoning Messiah, the prospect of contact with the true God could only bring terror. Many have no power, but those who have it have used their privileges to shame the plans of the weak and the poor. What will they do when the God to whom the poor man calls returns and shows that there is a God of justice after all?

Salvation for God's true Israel is coming out of the heavenly Zion. The Lord Jesus will restore the fortunes of those who worship Him in union with His Son. Because of this assurance, Jacob can rejoice even now, and Israel can be glad.