A Fool’s Belief – Psalm 14

I have occasionally thought it would just be easier to discount God altogether than to keep trying to explain how He could allow so much suffering or keep defending His seeming failure to come to the rescue of those who believe in Him.  But to discount God only leads to other problems.  It is a fool’s belief.  Thankfully God has brought me back from that brink.

To the choirmaster. Of David.

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”  They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good.

The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.

They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.

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

There they are in great terror, for God is with the generation of the righteous.  You would shame the plans of the poor, but the LORD is his refuge.

Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!  When the LORD restores the fortunes of his people, let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.  (Psalm 14 ESV)

The person who lacks judgment and wants to do evil is a fool who tells himself that God will not judge him, or even that there is no God, and so he can behave without restrictions.  The world is full of such fools and we are all such fools or have been at various times.  Fools “eat up” those who call upon and trust in Yahweh, hating them for living in such a way as to stir the fool’s conscience.  But God will put them in terror because the righteous has made Yahweh his refuge.  Israel longed for deliverance to come from Zion (Jerusalem).  We look for it from heaven.