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 14:1–7

This will be a little bit bracing because it breaks from our normal pattern of introduction, but we are going to go right to our text. The main point of Psalm 14 is both simple and offensive: Don’t be a fool—rejoice in the salvation that comes out of Zion.

1. The Talk and Walk of the Fool (vv. 1–4)

Listen to the talk of the fool right away in verse 1: “The fool says in his heart, ‘there is no God.’”

Some people think this atheist-type talk is modern thing—especially after the theory of evolution. People in the past were superstitious ignoramuses, but modern people are more advanced and don’t believe in God today. It is neither novel nor advanced nor sophisticated. Just old. Thousands of years ago people were rejecting God too. It is old, not novel, or hip, or modern.

Notice also that the term “fool” has nothing to do with intelligence or education. We are not talking about someone with a low IQ or poor standardized scores for intelligence tests or academic degrees. The psalmist does not say that some of the people who say there is no god are fools, but others aren’t—he makes it universal. Whoever says in his heart “there is no God” is a simply a fool. Period. End of story. No footnotes or exemption clauses. Not a matter of intelligence or education.

This is important because the stereotype some people have is that the educated elite reject God because of their big brains and the uneducated masses accept God because they are superstitious and they aren’t succeeding in life so they use God as a crutch. But we know very well that this is big time bologna. Test it. If it were true, then all the ignorant people would believe in God, while all the educated people would not believe in God. But it is not true. There are people on both sides—educated and uneducated people that love God and educated and uneducated people that mock God. 

Let us humbly let the psalmist define what a fool is. “Fool” has nothing to do with intelligence or education, but it does have something to do with “knowledge” or “understanding.” The Lord looks “to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God” (Psalm 14:2). The Psalmist even questions their understanding in verse 4:

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

A fool doesn’t seek God or call upon the Lord. Why? What is the fool’s reason for rejecting the Lord? The Psalmist does not present it as an intellectual problem (not an intelligence issue), but as a moral problem (heart issue). Here is what I mean. Read over verses 1–4 again. What is the character profile of a fool? They do abominable deeds; they are not good—no one is good. They have turned aside to corruption. Again the psalmist repeats the point: There is no one who does good.

Fools are people who refuse to love God or even acknowledge God. They reject God because they love evil or unrighteousness. This makes total sense. It is sure hard to seek and love a God who is perfectly good and holy and just, if you are not good and are corrupt and do evil deeds. That kind of God just gets in the way and cramps your style and rains on your parade and would ruin all your fun and take away all your joy. So the fool talks like there is no God and lives like there is no God.

A fool is someone whose whole life says, “in your face, God.” Fools don’t seek after God or call upon the Lord, but they do evil and eat God’s people. They ignore him, act independent of him, cavalierly break his rules and ruthlessly abuse his people. But this kind of life is a fool’s errand because fools know deep down that they won’t get away with it. Where do I get that? Look at point 2 in verses 5–6.

2. The Terror of the Fool (vv. 5–6)

The fool talks like there is no God and lives like there is no God, but deep down they are in terror of God. Do you see it? First phrase of verse 5—“There they are in great terror.” Who do the fools think they are fooling? The Lord sees it all—even their secret, deep-seated trembling. They act tough, but inwardly there are moments of terror.

They try and try in their talking and living to shake free of God, but they just can’t shake the sense that there is a God and that they should live for him. They know they are on the opposing team. They are taking it to God’s people—taunting them—shaming their plans—but God is the great game changer. God is with the righteous; the faithful and Almighty covenant Lord is the refuge of the righteous.

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.

3. The Response of the Righteous (v. 7)

The righteous are here defined as those who rejoice in the Lord’s salvation (same thought as the end of Psalm 13:5—“my heart shall rejoice in your salvation”). God is a refuge now for the righteous, but they also rejoice in the total salvation that is coming when God turns the tables on his enemies and rescues the righteous.

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.

There is so much more to say here—especially what the Psalmist means by salvation coming “out of Zion”—we will get to that in a moment. Here we need to see the profound way Psalm 14 gets picked up in the New Testament.

Application: The New Testament Update to the Story of Psalm 14

Message of Psalm 14: The fool talks like there is no God and lives like there is no God (because fools love evil), but deep down fools are in terror of God.

The Message of Romans 1 is exactly the same: Fools know there is a God that they should thank and honor and live for, but they suppress the truth of it because they love evil, even though they know they will receive God’s judgment:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.—Romans 1:18–22

They know God and see God but they suppress God—stuff him back down in their conscience because they don’t want God. They can’t shake the sense that there is a God and they should thank him and live for him, but they work hard to keep all of that beaten down and tucked away. Why? By their love affair with unrighteousness—that is why they suppress the truth of God. Paul even calls them what Psalm 14 calls them: fools. Fools make a terrible trade: They love created things more than God so they trade the creation for the Creator.

Then after a very long passage describing what their love affair with sin and evil looks like and the places it takes them, Paul says they know something else that shakes them (v. 32):

Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Romans 1–3: The Story of the Three Chairs

You have all heard the story of the three bears; the Psalms could be called the Story of the three chairs. The Psalms often speak of three chairs: the righteous chair, the wicked chair, and God’s chair on high (his throne). But when the New Testament applies the Psalms it tells us that our instincts can be wrong. We are all tempted to put ourselves in the righteous chair. Very few if any would admit to sitting in the wicked chair. So many of us would self-diagnose ourselves as being in the righteous chair and very few would conclude that they belong in the wicked chair.

The New Testament takes us all by the hand and says, “Sorry, you don’t belong in the righteous chair. Come over here, take your seat in the chair of the wicked.” It says we are seated there—we are not moving toward it—we are sitting in it. The whole Bible teaches that there is no one left to sit in the righteous chair—all are in the wicked chair.

Listen to the way that Paul keeps quoting these Psalms in Romans 3:9–18.

What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: 

“None is righteous, no, not one;                       Psalm 14:3
no one understands;                                       Psalm 14:2
no one seeks for God.                                     Psalm 14:2
All have turned aside;                                     Psalm 14:3
together they have become worthless;             Psalm 14:3
no one does good,                                          Psalm 14:3
not even one.”                                               Psalm 14:3
“Their throat is an open grave;                        Psalm 5:9
they use their tongues to deceive.” 
“The venom of asps is under their lips”             Psalm 140:3
“Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”    Psalm 10:7
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;                   Isaiah 59:7
in their paths are ruin and misery,                    Isaiah 59:7
and the way of peace they have not known.”     Isaiah 59:8
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”       Psalm 36:1

Proverbs says that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom—so if there is no fear of God, then these people are the opposite of wise—they are fools!

Do you see? People talk about the need to get people saved. It is much harder to get them lost than to get them saved. Everyone thinks they are saved. Everyone thinks that they are basically good. No one self-diagnoses themselves as wicked. How much would you have to sin to be deserving of damnation and destruction? Most people would say a little bit more than what I am doing now.

It is so shockingly easy to deceive ourselves. It is first and foremost a moral problem with the state of our heart and what we love. There is a Romans 1 rebellion and a Romans 2 rebellion. The Romans 1 way believes the lie that life is found in escaping God’s rules so you can rule your own life and live however you want. The Romans 2 way believes the lie that life is found in keeping God’s rules. Have you ever looked at a tree and thought it was one tree, but when you get close enough you realize they are actually two trees so intertwined that they look like one? The wicked chair is the opposite—from a distance it looks like two different chairs but as you get closer you realize it is only one chair—they are intertwined.

Let me share another story with you—perhaps the most haunting story I have read in some time. I recently read Robert Louis Stevenson’s story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Do you know what the punch line of the whole story is? Everyone thought they were two different people, but they were really expressions of the same person. Jekyll and Hyde were not all that different. You think Jekyll is a good guy because he is doing all these good things—church attendance and charitable giving. But deep down he longs to live a life free of all moral constraints—the problem is that he can’t because he cares too much about what other people will think of him. He thought he found a solution with Edward Hyde as his alter ego. Hyde could go to a nearby town and live as wild and reckless as he wanted and follow all of his evil desires all the time. It was fine because it would only impact the reputation of Hyde; it would never put a black mark on the name of Jekyll.

At one point, Dr. Jekyll thinks he can control the transformation. He just drinks a potion that he has developed and then he turns into Hyde. He goes out and fulfills all of his evil desires and then he comes in through the back way into the house. In the morning, he can engage with everyone as the respected scientist and philanthropist—¬ Dr. Jekyll. He loved the ability to act out all of his wicked thoughts without losing any respectability in the sight of people who thought well of Henry Jekyll. Suddenly Dr. Jekyll found himself turning into Hyde without drinking a drop of the potion.

What happened? He realized too late that Jekyll was a mixture of good and evil, while Hyde was all evil. Wanting to turn into Hyde upset the balance of power in an evil direction. So he had a decision to make: Hyde was becoming stronger and he was losing hold of Jekyll. The permanent Hyde would be despised and friendless and not respected. The permanent Jekyll would have to give up on acting out all of his evil pleasures, but he would be well respected and well liked. He decided to be Jekyll. For two months, he was a good and kind man and everyone praised him. Jekyll longed for Hyde to come out, but he was too scared of the consequences so he kept him under lock down.

Here was the part of the story that grabbed me by the throat. How did the final transformation come? Was he longing for all the sexual pleasures or drunken pleasures or violent pleasures?

There comes an end to all things; the most capacious measure is filled at last; and this brief condescension to my evil finally destroyed the balance of my soul. And yet I was not alarmed; the fall seemed natural, like a return to the old days before I had made my discovery. It was a fine, clear, January day, wet under foot where the frost had melted, but cloudless overhead; and the Regent's Park was full of winter chirrupings and sweet with spring odours. I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin. After all, I reflected, I was like my neighbours; and then I smiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing my active good-will with the lazy cruelty of their neglect. And at the very moment of that vainglorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most deadly shuddering. These passed away, and left me faint; and then as in its turn faintness subsided, I began to be aware of a change in the temper of my thoughts, a greater boldness, a contempt of danger, a solution of the bonds of obligation. I looked down; my clothes hung formlessly on my shrunken limbs; the hand that lay on my knee was corded and hairy. I was once more Edward Hyde.

You will have to read the book if you want to hear how it ends from there. Here is my point: Robert Louis Stevenson is not a Christian but he instinctively knows that self-righteousness is the same as unrighteousness—even if they have a different appearance on the outside. His self-righteous smugness was as evil and ugly as all his debased desires for physical pleasure.

Romans 1 sinners are like Edward Hyde. His internal desires for physical pleasures are ugly and he acts on them so all can see the ugliness and the evil. He does not have a good reputation. Romans 2 sinners give the appearance of being—Dr. Jekyll. They are like the Pharisees they fool people into thinking they are clean because the outside has been whitewashed, but the inside is filthy and ugly. 

Don’t fool yourself into thinking you are good if the outside looks good. Look at the reflexes of the heart if you really want to know your heart. We so desperately don’t want to look bad in front of others. We are addicted to it. I will never forget the day that I was driving and started to swerve into the other lane and there was a car there that I didn’t see. Cara shouted, “Jason! A car.” Now how do you think I responded. “Thank you for saving our lives. Wow. I am sorry that I was so careless.” She said, “Jason! A car.” I shouted back, “I know.” No I didn’t—or I would not have put us in danger.

You don’t belong in the chair of the righteous. You definitely don’t belong in God’s chair (though we sometimes pretend to sit there). Do the math! There is only one other chair and you belong there! Some of you instinctively think I am talking to unbelievers who are visitors. I am talking to everyone. You may have been attending Bethlehem for decades. Churches are filled with people who think things like church attendance saves them. The church pew is not the same as the righteous chair. Don’t confuse them! Many are sitting in church pews and all the while they are seated in the self-righteous chair of the wicked (the Romans 2 types looking down on the Romans 1 types). You think God is more pleased with your rebellion than with theirs?

1st Advent: Salvation Came ‘Out of Zion’

There is a Romans 1 rebellion and a Romans 2 rebellion, but thank God there is a Romans 3 redemption:

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.—Romans 3:23–25

Here is what Paul is saying. Because the righteous chair was left empty (all have sinned), the Son of God left his chair (throne) in heaven. Look at the humility. He traded his heavenly palace for an earthly stable. He traded his heavenly throne for an earthly feeding trough. O the mystery! As the song says—when Mary kissed her little baby—she kissed the face of God! He is called “Immanuel, God with us.” How is God with us as Psalm 14 says? He is with us as Immanuel—God with us.

O that salvation would come “out of Zion” (Psalm 14:7). What does that mean? Does he mean the earthly Jerusalem? No, the earthly Jerusalem is just a copy of the heavenly one. Moses was told to make a copy of the heavenly original. The Son of God came from the heavenly Zion. He came to save his people from their sins. That is the very meaning of his name.

Mary is a model of someone that believes what the angel said about Jesus saving his people from their sins. She rejoices and sings: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:46–47). But how does he save us from our sins? That is the most amazing part that makes you want to sing like never before.

He has to defeat evil without destroying evildoers—how is going to defeat evil? Jesus came and sat in the righteous chair. He lived a perfect life. He is in fact is called the Righteous One. He alone deserved to be loved and accepted by God the Father. But then he did something that should take our everlasting breath away. He went and sat in the chair of the wicked. What he did in that chair should take our breath away. Here it is—let’s call it Theological Judo. Judo or Jujitsu use an opponents force and attack against them. How does it work theologically?

Paul said that sin shows how sinful it is by using what is good to provoke more sin. The sinfulness of sin stands out in how it can even use what is good against us. But God’s victory over sin is even more impressive. If sin can use what is good against us, God can use what is evil against our evil. This answer to evil is so surprising and satisfying—it is unprecedented. Here is the quote that I read from Donald Bloesch as he used the word “judo.”

At the cross evil is conquered as evil. … Evil is conquered as evil because God turns it back upon itself. He makes the supreme crime, the murder of the only righteous person, the very operation that abolishes sin. The maneuver is utterly unprecedented. No more complete victory could be imagined. … God entraps the deceiver in his own wiles. Evil like a judoist, [tries to] take advantage of the power of the good, which it perverts; the Lord, like a supreme champion, replies by using the very grip of the opponent. Evil is defeated by evil (the supreme crime as the agent of abolishing—the wrecking ball) but carried out by the very opposite of evil—courage, faithfulness, selfless sacrifice, forgiveness—the ultimate degree of love in the fulfillment of justice.

O how the cross shows the supreme wisdom of God and power of God in salvation! Evil is conquered as evil—but substitution means that God can declare as righteous those who are ungodly because of the sacrifice of Christ and the righteousness of Christ. Receive the gift of righteousness—no matter how ungodly and undeserving and self-righteously unrighteous you have been. It can’t be earned or bought by enough good work credits—it is infinitely valuable. It was paid for at infinite cost—the death of the Son of God (it is not cheap). It can’t be earned, but it can be received by the empty, outstretched hand of faith. I have nothing, I can earn nothing, but I can receive everything in Christ and forever praise only Christ. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain.

The Second Advent: Salvation Will Come 'Out of Zion'

But there is one more thing to see in Psalm 14 and the New Testament. I think Psalm 14 actually appears as part of an allusion in Romans 11:26–27.

The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And
this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.

Isaiah 59:20—“And a Deliverer will come to Zion,
to those in Jacob who turn from transgression,” declares the LORD.
Isaiah 59:21—“And as for me, this is my covenant with them,”
Isaiah 27:9—“Therefore by this the guilt of Jacob will be atoned for” (or forgiven)

Here is the mystery: Isaiah 59:20 says the redeemer will come “to Zion,” not from Zion. The Greek translation has the deliverer will come “for the sake of Zion.” Where does the idea come from then that salvation would come “from Zion?” Answer: Psalm 14:7.

Our full and final salvation will come out of the heavenly Jerusalem. Jesus is reigning there now—he will leave there soon and come back to defend his bride against all her foes. Rejoice! We will rejoice in beholding the wisdom of God and the power of God in the salvation God brings at the Second Advent. The Bible says that he is going to make all things new. A new heavens and a new earth. What about all the pain that came before—how will he conquer over all our pain? This is perhaps my favorite passage in the whole book, The Brothers Karamazov, by the Russian novelist, Fyodor Dostoevsky:

I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage … in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they’ve shed; that it make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.

As you take communion, remember that we proclaim the wonders of the First Advent. The salvation that came to us as The Son of God came out of Zion to earth and took on flesh. We proclaim his death– see it symbolized tangibly and hold it in your hands (the bread and the cup). Remember that we also proclaim his death “until he comes.” We proclaim the salvation he will bring at the Second Advent when he will bring something to pass that will suffice for all our hearts because it will work backwards and heal all of our pain and sorrows. Proclaim both these advents in song as we sing: this is the One we have waited for (Advent 1) and this is the One we are waiting for (Advent 2).

Closing Song: This Is Our God

Sermon Discussion Questions

Outline

1. The Talk and Walk of a Fool (Psalm 14:1–4)
2. The Terror of a Fool (vv. 5–6)
3. The Response of the Righteous (v. 7)

Main Point: Don’t be a fool—rejoice in the salvation that comes out of Zion.

Discussion Questions

1. What is the main point of Psalm 14? What is the outline? How does the main point bring the points of the outline together?
2. What does it mean to be a fool? How are the righteous (i.e., the wise) fundamentally different from fools?
3. How is Psalm 14 similar to Romans 1?
4. How does the coming of “salvation out of Zion” happen in the First and Second advents?

Application Questions

1. Are you a fool? Even if you are not a fool as the overall pattern of your life, are there contexts in which think or act like a fool? Where are you a fool? Do you ever live as a practical atheist? For example, if God is not on the radar screen anywhere at work, then at work you are talking and walking as if “there is no God” at work.
2. Are you rejoicing in God’s salvation that has come out of Zion and that will come out of Zion? How can you talk and walk more as someone who really rejoices in the salvation of the first and second advents?

Prayer Focus
Pray for a grace to walk and talk as the wise and not as the foolish—rejoicing in God’s salvation. O that we would be like Mary and sing: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:46–47).