As we're going through the psalms, we're going to look at the 53rd psalm tonight. And we'll be considering this psalm, which is a parallel psalm to the 14th. They're very similar to each other, contain some of the same verses, but they appear in different contexts here and amongst other psalms. And so they have a different emphasis. One of the big differences is Psalm 14 uses the covenant name for God, Yahweh. And we'll see that translated in our English Bible as Lord, capital L, capital R, capital D, and small caps for O-R-D. And here we find the name God is used, Elohim in Hebrew, rather than Yahweh. So that's the major difference between those psalms. There are some other minor differences as well that have to do with the place that they occur. In the ancient world, there were very few philosophical atheists. I've met some philosophical atheists in my life, people who don't believe in the existence of God. They would say that they just believe we're here, we came here by accident, or they're materialists and this world is the only thing that there is. And I have met some people who have that kind of position. There are very few people in the ancient world, which was a very spiritual place, By spiritual, I don't mean by that that they had a true knowledge of God. I just mean they believed in spirits and in gods and goddesses and all of those kinds of things. Very few people were practical atheists. They had views of just spirits and all kinds of things of that nature. But we're going to see here a statement about atheism, if you would, but it's a kind of practical atheism. In other words, you've probably met people in your life who, if you ask them, do you believe in God, they would say, oh yes, I believe in God. But they don't live like they will ever have to answer to God. And as we see here in Psalm 53, this is how this passage starts. The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. So it starts here by using this term, which is a very common term in the wisdom literature. By that I mean that the Psalms and Proverbs, Psalms are wisdom, Psalms. Some of them are specifically wisdom literature, but it falls into that general category of wisdom literature like the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes and Job and these kinds of books. But here, this word fool is used in Proverbs and in the Psalms and other places to talk about someone who's not lacking in intelligence. That's not what it's talking about. It's not talking about someone who is just making bad decisions, although that is true as well. But it's someone who is a fool because they reject God. In other words, the fool in the wisdom literature isn't just somebody who makes bad decisions. It's someone who is disobeying God and going against God. And so they have a spiritual position here. And so what he's saying is, the fool, the person who's making bad decisions and doesn't have a right relationship with God, has said in his heart, notice it doesn't say he said outwardly, he said it in his heart internally, that there is no God. In other words, he's not saying that, he's not making a philosophical argument against the existence of God. Which, by the way, just from a logical standpoint, that would be a universal negative. To say there is no God, you can't be everywhere in the universe and experience everything simultaneously, so that's not a provable statement. But it is a statement that people make, I recognize that. But not even from a logical standpoint. The Bible tells us that every human being knows there's a God. Alright? Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God. Romans 1 tells us that people know that there's a God because from the creation, The creation is, just like Psalm 19 says, is declaring the glory of God and that the creation is telling people that there is a God. Romans 2 tells us they know there's a God to whom they have to answer. And so two things in human beings tell us that there is a God, and that is the creation around us. So we're swimming in a sea of revelation, if you would. All around us, we can look at the stars, we can look at the water and the plants and the sky and everything else around us, other human beings. We can look at all of that and it all says someone made this. There's a God who made this. Secondly, there is within us a, because we're made in God's image, as Ecclesiastes, to quote another piece of wisdom literature, said, God has set eternity in their hearts. I think that means that we're made in God's image and there's a certain sense that human beings have. Even people who are not religious or who are not Christian will generally have this sense that life's not over when it's over. Very few people will you meet who are just pure materialists and say, when this is over, it's over, and there's nothing afterward. Almost everybody, when they go to a funeral, thinks something is going on. That person's not really gone completely. And that's because we're made in God's image and we have this sense of the eternal in us, but also within us is this idea that there's right and wrong and that we have to answer to somebody. And so you find that even among people who reject biblical truth and biblical morality, They're rejecting it, but yet they're still assuming it many times. In other words, they'll point out inconsistencies in Christians, not just because they are inconsistencies, but because they view the things that were inconsistent in the Christian as bad. So in other words, they're still assuming Christian morals when they're pointing out the inconsistencies in Christians. So you have people in this world who know there's a God, and yet reject him. Romans 1 tells us that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, but their foolish heart was darkened, and professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and they exchanged the image of God for the image of corruptible things, for four-footed beasts, etc. And then it says, when they did not like to keep God in their imagination, when they didn't want to keep God, they set God aside in their knowledge, then God gave them over to a reprobate mind. And so what we see is that a rejection of God is not an indication of the fact that there's no revelation that God exists, or that human beings don't have inherently in them this kind of idea that there is a God to whom they have to answer, but it's an indication of the fact that they have rejected the truth that they already know about God. So let me say this. There are practical atheists and there are philosophical atheists, but all of them, we can remember this, they're swimming in a sea of God's revelation, and two, internally they have a witness. Within them, being made in the image of God, they have a witness to the fact that there's a God. And so when you're talking to them, pure logical reasoning is not going to convince them, because that's not what it's about for them. They will go between logical and illogical to prove that they don't have to answer to God. because it's a moral issue for them. They don't want to have to answer to him, so they'll make up whatever they have to, to not do so. I remember reading a quote from the curator at the Field Museum in Chicago. This was many years ago, and I'm sure this man is no longer the curator there. I think I read this in the 1980s. But the Field Museum is one of the best natural history museums in the world. It has dinosaur bones and all kinds of taxidermied animals and all kinds of things like that. And he said, basically he said this, I find that The idea of evolution seems statistically unlikely, is basically what he said. He said, but what other choice do we have? I would rather believe this than the existence of God. So what he was saying is, I know it's far-fetched and it doesn't make logical sense, but my choice is evolution or God, and I don't want to answer to God, so therefore I'm going to believe in evolution. That was his conclusion. He was just being more honest than a lot of people. But that's what we're doing, is we're coming to the conclusion that I don't want to have to answer to God, and so therefore I'm going to make up something else. So what happens is people reject the existence of God because of their sinfulness, not because of the fact that they don't know through creation and through their conscience that there's a God, or not because of the fact that it's illogical to believe in God, but they reject it because they don't want to answer to God. In other words, they have to answer to God. That means they have to consider how they're living. And so what happens, though, in ancient Israel where you don't have philosophical atheism, You have a practical atheist, and this is a person, this is exactly what this verse is talking about, who has said in his heart there's no God. In other words, he's not outwardly saying it. He's got no fancy system of, you know, philosophy to try to justify why there's no God. He's just basically saying, really, I can do this and it doesn't matter. I can live the way I want and it doesn't matter. Whether there's a God to answer to or not, he's not going to care. It just doesn't matter. The fool is set in his heart, there is no God. Now you'll see and sometimes people will preach this passage and they'll point out that there is, is an italics, which means it's not in the original. But that's a little deceptive. So you can't translate this. Sometimes you'll hear people say the fool is set in his heart, no God, he's saying no to God. That's not what this verse means. There is no, there is a word in the Hebrew language that means there is not, it does not exist. Okay, so the word no is being represented by, as a negative, in the text, but there is is just added to make sense of that negative word in Hebrew. The negative word that doesn't just mean no, it means it doesn't exist. There is no. And so the fool has said in his heart, there's no God. In other words, there's no God to answer to. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity. There is none that doeth good. And so what we find here is this statement that of people, especially these fools who've said in their heart that there is no God, are corrupt and have done abominable iniquity. Now this is interesting because the reason they're saying there is no God is exactly because they've done these sins. And the nature of the human heart is to be self-deceptive about sin. That is, we look at our own sins and we justify them. We say, you don't understand why I had to do that. But yet when we see someone else do the same thing we're doing, we think it's terrible. I remember reading in the story of Elizabeth Elliot, her husband and four other missionary men had been speared to death in Ecuador. They tried to reach a group of people called Huadani in the story, initially called the Aka. But an Aka is a Quechua word for savage. So the Quechua, who were the descendants of the Incas, called these people savages. But that's not what the people called themselves. They called themselves the Huadani. In their language, that means the people. And they were trying to reach them with the gospel, and in the process they ended up becoming martyrs. But Elizabeth Elliot, the wife of Jim Elliot, who's one of the best known of the five missionaries, ended up going and moving and living with the Wadani in order to get to know them. Women weren't as threatening as the men. And so she was able to go live with them for a while. And one of the things she said was a favorite pastime, or a pastime at times, of these men living in the Amazon was to go and find a child. Because what would happen is the men would go hunting. And the women would keep a little garden plot in the jungle, and then there'd be the little village, and the women would be a few hundred yards away in the garden plot working. And they'd find a small toddler, three years old or something like that, and he'd be taking a nap, as toddlers often do. And one of the men in the village would come up to a toddler, and he'd shake the child awake, and he'd say, your mother's gone, she's left, and she's never coming back. Now, if you tell that to a three-year-old, they're going to panic, because they worry about that. Where's mommy? And they would do this and the child would stand there and cry and be distraught and then the men would sit there doubled over laughing because the child is terrified. Now, we think about that and we go, why would you do that to a three-year-old? That's terrible. Okay? But I remember reading in this account that she said, how many times though in the last or in the developed world do we say something cruel to somebody and say, oh, just kidding. It's not any different. It's just we're used to it in our culture. So when I say to somebody, hey, you know, and I say something terrible to them, I'm just kidding. Like the just kidding doesn't take the insult away. It's still an unkind statement. And so what happens is there's this self-deceptiveness that when I do it, look, I always assume my motives are best and that I want to do right. But that's self-deceptive. I deceive myself. And so what happens is part of that self-deception is self-justification. To say what I'm doing isn't that bad or I had a good reason to do it or those poor people, you know, they had it coming to them or whatever it is. So they deserved for me to steal from them, or whatever things people do. And because people have done this abominable iniquity, they therefore have turned away from God, and therefore say in their heart, there is no God, I don't have to answer to him. God's not gonna hold me accountable for this. And then he goes on and says, David does here, that there is none that doeth good. In other words, there's nobody who's inherently righteous. We are all sinners, that's the universal testimony of scripture, that all of us sin. Part of the testimony of that is, think of the Old Testament. prescriptions were there for sacrifices and the various sacrifices. Those sacrifices weren't there because sin was rare, those sacrifices were there because sin was common. And Jesus didn't die on the cross because we weren't sinners, he died on the cross because he was paying for our sins. Verse 2, God looked down from heaven upon the children of man to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God. And so what he says here is, here's God, it's picturing God, he's looking down from heaven and he's searching for a human being among the children of men to see if there are any that had understanding. Not that weren't fools, but that had understanding. That weren't sinners, but that had understanding. And how many of them were seeking after him? Verse three, here's the bad news. Every one of them has gone back. They are all together become filthy. There is none that doeth good, no not one. This is quoted in Romans chapter three, when Paul is justifying the fact that everybody's a sinner. In other words, as God looked down from heaven in our natural state, there's nobody seeking God, there's nobody that's naturally trying to do right. We're all going our own way and self-justifying and self-deceiving and thinking we're okay even though we sin and we forget how great our sins are. It's like I've had people come here by the church and ask for a, you know, money. They need money for something. And sometimes they have substance abuse issues and I remember Talking to a man, and I directly asked him because he had some signs of substance abuse, I said, I think you need money and don't have a job because you have a substance abuse addiction. He said, yes. I said, what are you addicted to? He said, crack cocaine. He said, but I quit. I said, you quit? He said, yes. I said, when was the last time you smoked crack cocaine? He said, three days ago. And this, if you've ever been around an addict or have met an addict, they quit every time. They smoke the drug, then they get off of it, they're on the low after the drug and they're like, this is terrible, I'm ruining my life, I quit, I'm done. But then three or four days later, they want the high again, sometimes the next day, they want the high again and they go right back to it. Okay? And so there's a self-deception that says, I quit, but they haven't really quit. They haven't really repented of what they're doing. They just know that what they're doing is bad and it's not doing good for them and they wish they could quit, but they're not really quitting. And what's going on is, as you look down, as God looks down from heaven here, there's nobody that's really quit sin. That's the point. Everybody has gone their own way. Everyone has become corrupt. No one does good. There's not one. The only person that's lived on this earth who was truly righteous, that had no sin, was Jesus Christ. The very Son of God came to this earth, and he took on our humanity, and he died on the cross to pay for our sins, and he rose again to give us eternal life. that was without sin. All the rest of us are sinners, and this passage is clearly saying that. But it's talking specifically here about a group of people who've said in their heart that there is no God. There are others of us, hopefully, as believers, that when we face our sin, instead of trying to self-justify it, what we do is hopefully come to it and say, God, I am a sinner, and I have no way to save myself. I need Jesus. The only hope I have is what Jesus did for me. So we're gonna deal with it two ways. We're either gonna self-justify or we're going to find justification in Christ. We're either going to try to find a righteousness of our own by saying, yeah, but I did some other good things that outweigh the bad things I did, or the bad things I did were justifiable, or the bad things I did weren't that many. We're going to do something like that, or we're going to say, the bad things I did, my sins condemn me, and I have no hope of eternal life. But I thank God that God sent his son to die on the cross for me. Verse four, have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? So what he says, wait a second, remember he's called them fools. Do they not have knowledge? Do they not have understanding? So here he's, and we do have to understand, the Bible does make a distinction that there are a group of people who are especially wicked, that are sinners, that won't repent. So what they're talking about here is, don't misunderstand this, it's not saying we're better than other people or anything else like that, but there are some people out there that are confirmed in their sin and then they justify it. Are the workers of iniquity, do they have no knowledge? eat up my people as they eat bread. They have not called upon God. And God calls these righteous poor his people. Now note what it says they're doing here. They eat up my people as they eat bread. In other words, they treat people like something to be consumed. And don't treat them in a way that respects the fact that these are fellow people made in the image of God. In other words, it's no problem for them to abuse the poor in whatever way they're wanting to do it. Stealing from them, using their labor without paying them fairly, all kinds of things that they do to them. Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge who eat up my people as they eat bread? It's a picture of cannibalism, if you would, but it's metaphoric. It's not that there's literal cannibalism going on here, but it's saying, you might as well eat these people because you're treating them like they're bread to eat, not like they're people. Not like they're people made in the image of God. And we can look at this and say, well, we don't have those same economic systems. We have protections for the poor and these kind of things. We have a safety net and a welfare system and some of these kind of things that will help protect poor people. And we have a justice system that looks to protect poor people and laws that look to protect people. The problem with that, though, is there's still plenty of injustice in our world. In this fallen world, there's still plenty of injustice. You know, how many people are there living in slavery in America today? Secretly. Okay? The majority of that number are actually domestic house workers that they get in their country, wherever it might be, maybe in Asia or in Africa or somewhere, they're told, even in Eastern Europe, they're told, we can get you to the United States and you can have a new life there. And then they say, but you'll have to pay us back when you get there. And when they arrive, they're put to work and they're told, you owe us this much for your plane fare and then you're going to live here with this family and you're going to pay us back the money. And it's really the kind system where they get paid such low wages that they can never pay it back, so they stay in this system where they have to work as slaves. And there's thousands and thousands and thousands of people in the United States who are stuck in that kind of a system where they are someone's slave, basically. That exactly is the kind of thing that's being talked about here. And in many cases, these are people that are keeping these house, you know, domestic servants. And I'm not talking about somebody who's getting a legitimate wage and those kinds of things. If somebody's getting paid to, you know, be a maid at a hotel and gets paid, you know, legally and has to follow all the labor laws, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about this is a person who's been brought into the country to be abused. And obviously there's other ways that people are abused as well. But, you know, that's exactly the kind of thing that this is talking about, eating up the poor. And we need to be careful here because, you know, we can find this in our country. I mean, unborn babies are treated this way as if they're not human. Inconvenient for people, people will have abortions and decide that they're not going to have that child. That's not any different than eating up my people as they eat bread. Or the way that, I know it's difficult sometimes to know all the injustices that are out there and we can't correct them all, but I don't think we should willingly participate in them, if that makes sense. In other words, there's going to be times that there are injustices going on and we need to be careful that we not willingly participate in them. so that there are people who don't get paid a really good wage. And I don't really want to do business with somebody who doesn't treat his employees well. They're eating up my people as they eat bread. There's an injustice here, but these people who've said in their heart there is no God, they justify that injustice. I don't have to answer to God for this. I might as well. Why shouldn't I get ahead? This is a dog-eat-dog world. Why shouldn't it be like that? And then he says in verse 5, there were they in great fear, where no fear was. For God has scattered the bones of him that encampeth against thee. Thou hast put them to shame, because God hath despised them. So what does it say? Here they are in great fear. They're looking over their shoulder. Because guess what? As long as you say in your heart there is no God, you can justify what you're doing. But your conscience and creation tells you there's a God you have to answer to. And they're still worried that judgment is coming. And then we have this interesting statement, for God hath scattered the bones of him that encampeth against thee. In other words, God is going to destroy these wicked people who have said in their heart, there is no God, who are eating the poor, if you would. And he's going to destroy them and scatter their bones. In other words, if you're going to eat the poor, God's going to leave you out there like a dead animal that died in the wilderness. What happens to an animal that dies in the wilderness? You have a deer running through the wilderness, it falls dead. What happens to it? Animals come and eat it, right? See, there's a kind of a poetic justice in this, that they're going to be treated just like they treated other people. God's judgment's going to come on them. They're not going to have graves. There's not going to be any respect. They don't respect the image of God and other people, and the judgment that's going to come on them is going to treat them as if they're not made in God's image. That was put them to shame because Goddess despised them. Oh, that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion. So here's this hope, oh that God's rescue would come, that it would come out of Zion, that's Jerusalem. When God bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice and Israel shall be glad. Now this is a Psalm of David we see here, but we have this word captivity being used and there's a couple ways to look at this. It could be a metaphoric captivity in the sense that they're captive to the oppression of these wicked people who say in their heart that there's no God. Or it could be that this psalm was, this last verse of this psalm was added editorially by an inspired editor. In other words, that you have a later author who adds this last verse during the Babylonian captivity, which is a possibility as well. So in other words, maybe an Ezekiel or a Daniel or somebody was reading this psalm and adapted it to their current setting. Under inspiration, okay? This would be under inspiration. That's completely possible that that could be the case as well. But either way we look at it, there's this hope of God bringing his rescue and ultimately that hope is in Christ, right? Salvation is going to come literally through Jesus. Yes, it comes spiritually through Christ, salvation from sin, but also it comes in the fact that the Christ, the Messiah is coming and Jesus is going to return and he's going to make, when he rules, he's going to rule with a rod of iron and his kingdom will be just. At this time of year we contemplate the incarnation of Christ, and we think about the fact of some of the prophecies in Isaiah. Isaiah 7, 14, the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel, for he shall save his people from their sins. And then we find in Isaiah 9, 6, for unto us a son is born, unto us a child is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. And of the increase of his government, there shall be no end." What we find is that there's this prophecy that that one who's coming, that virgin-born Immanuel, God with us, this is Jesus, that he's going to be the Prince of Peace, the Wonderful Counselor, the Almighty God. He's going to rule and reign, and his government will have no end. He'll have this perfect rule of justice. This is the hope of us. All right, I'm thankful to live in the United States of America, but it's got plenty of flaws. But I'm looking forward to the time when Jesus comes back and he rules and reigns in perfection. And that's exactly the hope that David has here in this psalm, that God will bring back his people. And Jacob, that's Israel, shall rejoice and Israel shall be glad when their Messiah comes. This is their hope and this is our hope. In other words, the ultimate answer to the fact that there is injustice in the world today is that the just judge is coming again. The ultimate hope of the fact that I look around and I see things, maybe even at times, some of you maybe even have experienced injustice towards yourself. When you look at that, the hope is not to try to get revenge personally and try to go make things right personally, but to let the just judge, shall not the judge of all the earth do right, Abraham says to God. and to hope in God that Jesus is coming again and that he's going to rule on the throne of his father David in Zion in Jerusalem. That's the hope. That's what we look forward to. And no matter how much we do, you know, social justice is a big buzzword in our society today. No matter how much we do to try to make social justice, there's injustices. And even the works that try to create social justice create new injustices. I'm not saying that when we have flawed systems where the poor are oppressed that they shouldn't be fixed. But my point is simply this, some of the things that are proposed as social justice answers just create injustice in other ways. So there's no way fallen human beings who don't believe that they have to answer to God are ever going to come up with a just system. We need God to do it. We need Christ to come. We need him to rule and come out of Zion. When God bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice and Israel shall be glad. Let's pray.