Some follow after fortune and fame So when they're gone the world will remember their name But I am learning that what matters most Can't be held in my hands And that riches aren't the measure of the worth of a man. It's found in me. Faithful to the cross, faithful to His call. Laying down my life, surrendering my all. Forgetting what's behind me and counting it as loss. Faithful to the faith. to the cross I want to know I ran my race That I fought the fight and kept the faith And when at last I stand before Thee I want to hear Him say, well done. That my Heavenly Father would be proud of this son. Faithful to the cross, faithful to His call. Laying down my life, surrendering my all. Forgetting what's behind me and counting it as flaws. Faithful to the faith. faithful to the cause so let this be the legacy for those who follow I was faithful to the cross Faithful to His call Laying down my life Surrendering my all Forgetting what's behind me And counting it as lost Faithful to the finish Faithful to the finish Faithful to the cross How's that? Now that'll wake you up. Now, like I said, the music's been good. Amen? I mean, it's been good. When I go out to eat, Brother Jim, and it's been good, I like to let people know it's been good. That's been good music, right? You know, now, so one of these days we'll get to preaching. So there are churches that don't have what we have. Even in this fair city, there are churches bigger than ours that doesn't have what we have music-wise. So we ought to be happy every time we hear good music. Put a smile on our face. We ought to say glory to God. I thought Miss Ellie down here was going to have a fit. She's going, I just knew she was going to jump up and start running. She was in the music, I'm telling you, it's been good. Tiffany and the Girls, that's an awesome, awesome song. Choir did awesome. And even the congregation did pretty good, okay? So it's been good. but it's gonna get a little gooder, okay? Because the Bible says it's the foolishness of preaching, amen? And you got a foolish guy, so we're gonna do some preaching and it's gonna be good. Psalms 14, you find Psalms 14, you can stand with me. Psalms 14, gonna begin reading verse number one, you can follow along. The fool has set in his heart There is no God. What sad, sad words. They are corrupt. They have done abominable works. There is none that doeth good. The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek God. They are all gone aside. They are altogether become filthy. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. That's double emphasis, right? Verse four. Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? Are they like dumb? Who eat up my people as they eat bread and call not upon the Lord? There were they in great fear, for God is in the generation of the righteous. Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor, because the Lord is his refuge. Oh, that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion, when the Lord bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad. Hallelujah, let's pray. Lord Jesus, thank you for your word. I pray to God there'd be no fools among us today. I pray that we'd recognize, acknowledge the fact that you are God and that we would make you God of our life. Lord, I know we live in a generation of people who mock God, who detest God, who hate Christians, and God, I pray for us here in these days in which we live to be strong, to stand upon the truth. not to follow the winds and the currents of the society around us, but Lord, that we'd stand upon the truth of your word, that you would empower us and strengthen us and help us to draw closer to you and to be strong in the faith. Thank you for this time together today. We pray for working of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in our hearts, that we not leave here as we came, but that we leave here refreshed and encouraged in the things of the Lord. We love you, we ask these things in your blessed, most holy name, amen, and you may be seated. Now while you're being seated, take your Bibles and turn to Psalms 53. Some of you may have known this. I did not know this till this week. Or at least if I did, I slept too much and forgot it. Psalms 53. The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. Wait a minute, didn't I just read that? Yeah, matter of fact, if you've held your Bible like this, you can kind of look. Psalms 14, Psalms 53. God looked down from heaven upon the children. Oh, let me go back. The fool said in his heart, there is no God. Corrupt are they that have done abominable nickety. There is none that doeth good. So what we find here is the only place in the Bible where a chapter is almost completely repeated, okay? So I wrote in my margin, because my Bible didn't have it, I wrote identical at Psalms 14, I wrote identical to Psalms 53, and at Psalms 53, I wrote identical to Psalms 14, and they're pretty much identical, except for one spot, where you'll notice that in 14 I think there's seven verses, in 53 there's six verses, and 14 has just a little more wordage than you'd find there in Psalms 53. So it's quite an interesting study. I have my computer, of course, and I took and cut it up, I put Psalms 14.1, Psalms 53.1, and stacked them like that so I could follow along. Pretty interesting just to study, just to see. And so you learn something by coming to church today, okay? Hopefully you've learned something. So here's the thing. Psalms 14 and Psalms 53 are nearly identical, only a slight change of thought near the end of each Psalms differentiates the two. Why would the Bible include two Psalms that are very nearly the same? A close look at Psalms 14 and Psalms 15 offers some insight into this matter. So I quote from a source, Three distinctions are observable in these two Psalms. The first is in the different titles assigned to the Psalm, okay? Not gonna go into detail there, you can read those for yourself. Second, there is one clear difference between the end of each Psalms. In Psalms 14, five through six states, but there they are overwhelmed with dread for God is present, the company of the righteous. You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor, but the Lord is their refuge. By contrast, Psalms 53 5 says, but there they are overwhelmed with dread where there is nothing to dread. God scattered the bones of those who attacked you. You put them to shame for God despised them. So what is the difference? Psalms 14 focuses more on God's deliverance of the righteous, while Psalms 53 focuses more on God's defeat of the wicked. It is possible that one of the psalms is an adaptation of the earlier psalm and the change the lyrics contemporaries at a specific event. The third difference. The third difference between the two psalms regards the use of God's name. Of course, this would be in reference here, Psalms 14 says the Lord, and we've talked about whenever the Lord appears in capitals, it's referring to Yahweh, and that's in verses two, four, six, and seven. And Psalms 53 uses God, which is Elohim, in the seven places where God is mentioned. I'm not gonna go into delineate those two differences, but those are just so you know and maybe give you food for study a little later. The theme in both Psalms is the salvation of God. Matter of fact, we could just close the book and say the whole point of the Bible is the salvation of God, right? But that's what he's trying to point out here. Both Psalms end with these words. Oh, that salvation of Israel would come out of Zion when the Lord restores his people. Let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad. Psalms 14.7 and Psalms 53.6. For today, we're gonna be in Psalms 14. because we know Psalms 53 is almost identical. And I've really been taken with this one thought, and that is the first phrase here, the fool has said in his heart there is no God. The fool said that there is no God. When we talk about the word fool here, we're not talking about a mental state to which one is born, like he was born foolish, or we might say he was born simple, or he was born without the full reasoning capabilities. We're talking about one who has who is determined to be a fool. He's kind of chosen to be a fool. Being a fool is not determined on a person's mental makeup. A person's mental makeup, we would find some scriptures maybe more like Proverbs 8.5, oh ye simple understand wisdom, and ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart. And so it's not a mental state with which one is born. It's a determining factor that some have made. And I would like to point out scriptures that, if you would, knock the idea of the fool. So Romans 1.22 says, professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. So it was an act that they did. 1 Corinthians 4.10, we are fools for Christ's sake. This is a determination to give up all inhibitions that they might serve Christ. But ye are wise in Christ, we are weak, but ye are strong, ye are honorable, but we are despised. In 2 Corinthians 11.19, For ye suffer fools gladly, seeing yourselves are wise. In Ephesians 5.15, see then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise. I don't think the reference here to the fact that the fool has said in his heart there is no God is the fact that this was a person who was born in a foolish state as a fool, but they've made a determination to be a fool because of their rejection of God. We would say that they've chosen to be an atheist, right? They've chosen not to acknowledge that there is a God. They've chosen to mock him. They've chosen to belittle him. They've put him away. So it's a decision that was made. It's a decision where they say there is no God and they refuse to accept his gift of salvation, his son Jesus Christ, the history of God, the Bible. They just knock it all together. One writer put it this way, he said, a fool is not someone who is stupid. I wanted to use that word, so I had to find a quote, so it doesn't sound like I'm using that word, because I've been told the police might be listening. But this is a quote written back in the 1700s, and therefore I can repeat it, right? A fool is not someone who is stupid or uneducated, but a person who rejects God. By rejecting God, the fool rejects the one who has made the moral and spiritual laws that can make life just and good. A fool is indeed corrupt because they deny God's existence, which allows wickedness to prevail. So to believe there is a God, is not in their vocabulary, they don't believe it. But it does cause me, as I was thinking on this, to give thought to something else. And that is, what about Christians who refuse to acknowledge God and give him preeminence in their lives? I mean, we have the picture of the fool who says there is no God, but what about the Christian who says, I believe there's a God, but I've got my life to live, preacher. I've got the things I wanna do. I know you get up and you hold that book up and you preach and you sweat and you spend hours studying it so that you can come and bring it to me, but you know, preacher, I just don't really believe all that stuff. Matter of fact, preacher, I'm gonna live my life my way. I'm going to do what I think is right. So now when that decision comes, who's God? It's not God. I would say that is a foolish decision. So I would submit to you this idea, although it's not what the scripture's pertaining to here. I would present to you that there are Christians who are saved and on their way to heaven who make foolish mistakes. And the foolishest mistake of them all would be to say, I know that I'm saved, I know I'm on my way to heaven, I know that one day I'm gonna stand in his presence. Now get this, one day I'm gonna stand in his presence and I will give an account of my life, but I am quite content to say, God, there you are, and there your word is, and there's what the preacher says, and this is all the things that I oughta believe and I oughta do, but I'm gonna do this my way. knowing that one day they will stand in the presence of God and give an account for the way they choose to live their life. Why doesn't that put us all in fear? Why not? Why shouldn't we be in great fear that we're gonna stand in the presence of Almighty God who made us and created us, and one day we're gonna give an account of how we chose to live our life? That oughta make us so fearful. Think about this just a moment longer. The fool denies that there's a God, and one day we know in the book of Revelation that there's gonna be a great judgment that's gonna be held at the lake of fire. Death and hell are gonna be cast into the lake of fire. Satan, the false prophet, and the beasts are all gonna be cast into the lake of fire. And all those fools who never accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior will be cast into the lake of fire for all of eternity. Sad, sad verses. Think about this. Christians are gonna stand in judgment before God as we see, I believe, in Corinthians kind of alluded to. Our works will be tried by fire. These things happen before the great white throne judgment. When we go in the rapture, we'll stand in his presence. Our works will be tried by fire. We'll stand in his presence. We'll give an account of how we live. And then we will go into all of eternity with him And if it wasn't for the fact that God would wipe away all the tears from our eyes, I'm afraid those who chose to refuse to live for God while they were here would spend an eternity in heaven crying over the sorrow of their failure. Their failure to recognize him as God, their failure to acknowledge him and say, God, whatever you want. Man, what a wonderful song the Foster men sang today. The song was about living for the cross, about giving our all to live for him. You know, some of us are, we're getting close to the end of life. And I begin to think about that more and more. I'm gonna step in his presence. It could be within the next five minutes. By the way, if I go, leave me alone. Okay, just let me go. I've got a better place to go, it's gonna be great. But I'm telling you, some ought to live in great fear. Because they ought to be acknowledging, oh, any day I could meet him. Any day I'll give an account of how I lived my life. We like to think of heaven, it's gonna be great, it's gonna be grand, we're gonna get to see all our loved ones and this, that, and the other thing. But listen, it's also gonna be a place that we're gonna give an accounting. So as a Christian, we ought to be getting ready, right? We ought to be getting ready to go. We ought to be preparing and making place that we're able to go, we're willing to go, we're looking forward to it. So, they have chosen and we choose every day. And I would just like to challenge you that every day we would choose to walk with the Lord. The fool here, back to our scripture, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. The next phrase is, they are corrupt. They have done abominable works. And so as they look at those, as God looked down from heaven, he saw the fools, the foolish, he looked down, he recognized that here are people that are corrupt and they've done abominable works. Where there is no God, there is no moral conscience. Where there is no God, there is no moral conscience. And without a moral conscience, then every man does what he will. So it really shouldn't surprise us when we look around and we say, man, the world is a mess. Well, yeah, it's a mess, because the world's choosing themselves, they're choosing themselves to be God, they're choosing their wisdom, they're rejecting Jesus Christ, they're rejecting God of heaven, they mock him, they ridicule him, and so we gotta just recognize that when the world takes more control of the world in which we live, That's the direction our world's going to go. That's the direction it's going to proceed. There is a way to turn it around. But that would require that every Christian on this earth would begin to tell others about Jesus Christ. And that we would be concerned about their souls and we would win them to Christ. And then we would teach them the truth of the word of God that they might win others and win others. See the whole goal is we'd have to evangelize and win this world in which we live to the cause of Christ if we're ever gonna turn it around. So then you might say, I give up. That's not the goal here. The goal is to finish well, not to give up. You can give up any time. I hate to play board games with people who say, you're going to win, I just quit. No, no, you can't do that to me. There's the joy. of playing risk and rolling that final dice and taking that final army off the board. There's the joy of you landing in my Monopoly game and me taking the last of your money. There's a joy to winning. You know there's a lot of you just like me. I love it. I want to win. How do I win? I finish strong for the Lord. That's how I win. It's a choice that I will make. Here we see the corrupt world. We see the corruptness, and by the way, it's gaining ground all around us, isn't it? All around us we see our world raveling and coming apart, but listen. In Judges 17, six, it said, in those days, there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes. In Judges 21, 25, in those days, there was no king in Israel where every man did that which was right in his own eyes. They didn't have a king because the king of kings was not their king. We should survive with a king or without a king. We should survive without a moral president or a moral president. because God is our God. He is the one we're focused on. We need to live for him. It may cost us something, but Lalo, we need to finish this life, and we need to finish well, because one day, I've already emphasized this, we're gonna stand in his presence, and we'll give an account. Did you finish well? And if you finish well, he's gonna say, well done, thou good and faithful servant. But I'm afraid what happens a lot of times, we look and go, Preacher, don't you understand how hard it is to live for God in this day and age? I understand. Does it cost you? Oh yeah, it costs. It may cost family members who no longer wanna come along because the things that you believe, they may decide, I don't want anything to do, that's okay. The Bible said that would happen. Jesus lost following after following because people didn't want to follow him because of what he stood for. So why wouldn't it cost us? Why shouldn't we remain faithful? Thinking of the fool, another quote, the atheist is the fool preeminently and a fool universally. He would not deny God if he were not a fool by nature, and having denied God, it is no marvel that he becomes a fool in practice. Sin is always folly, and as it is the height of sin to attack the very existence of the Most High, so is it also the greatest imaginable folly to say there is no God, to belie the plainest evidence, which is obstinance, to oppose the common consent of mankind, which is stupidity. to stifle consciousness, which is madness. If the sinner could, by his atheism, destroy the God whom he hates, there were some sense, although much wickedness in his infidelity, but as denying the existence of fire does not prevent its burning a man who is in it, so doubting the existence of God will not stop the judge from all the earth from destroying the rebel who breaks his laws. Nay, this atheist, This atheism is a crime which should provoke heaven and will bring down terrible vengeance on the fool who indulges it, Charles Spurgeon. The atheist fool has said in his heart there is no God. Does that change anything? I'm watching a real, just yesterday, This guy is interviewing these two trans guys. And he said, you know, it's all about definitions. How do you define a woman? And so one of the trans guys had asked him this. So he gave definition of a woman. Then he turns to him and he says, how do you define a woman? He says, well, really, it's just kind of a state of feeling. And it's this. The fool is setting his heart there. The fool is setting his heart on a lot of stupid stuff because he doesn't believe in a God to start with. The Fool says, that book that you use right there is so archaic. I was reminded during the election cycle just this last year, they were, the big election on the abortion thing, remember, where Kansas was gonna vote, whether to be an abortion state or to not make it legal in Kansas. I remember people began posting videos of preachers who were preaching in favor of abortion. By the way, they weren't using this Bible, King James Bible. They progressed and they've written so many different Bibles that they eventually wrote one that they agreed with and so they would be quoting out of that. Yeah, it's okay for a woman to go have an abortion to kill a person. And yet it's kind of ironic, isn't it, that in so many states, that if you kill a pregnant woman, you're charged with her death and the death of her baby. It's not where I'm going, but that's where I'd like to go. The society in which we live. It's so disrupt, it's so corrupted with the thoughts and its notions and its mind. And so he comes to this final phrase here in verse number one, he says, there is none that do it good. My mom's favorite verse. I'm telling you, my mom's favorite verse. They go, how you doing? I said, I'm doing good. She goes, there is none good. No, not one. My mom did that to me every time I saw her. She may have done it to many of you, the way you're smiling. That was just her favorite thing to say. So I wrote it in there. That's my mom's favorite verse. There's none that do it good. Romans chapter 3. Verse 10 through verse 18. As it is written, there is none righteous, no not one. So I strive to live a righteous life, but I need to keep on. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after God. We're referring to men left to themselves, mankind left to himself. There's none that understand. There's none that seeketh after God. Verse 12, they are all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher, with their tongues they have used deceit. The poison of asp is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes." You know, mom was right. There is not a man that just seeks. But I like these verses, Matthew 19, 17. And he said unto him, why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is God. So there is one that's good. Mark 10, 18, Jesus said unto him, why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is God. Luke 18, 19, Jesus said unto him, why callest thou me good? None is good, say one, that is God. I'm so thankful that God is good. Even if I get a scrambled up life, he's still good to me. I go out and I mess things up, I can come back to him, he'll help me correct those things in my life. He makes life good. He's the only one that can make life good. In verses two through three of Psalms 14, We get the reminder that the wicked flourish because they are foolish. In verse two, the Lord looketh down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek God. They were all gone aside. They are all together become filthy. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. You imagine, you know, I'm looking forward to the rapture. I hope that's the way I get to go. Can you imagine what this world's gonna be like for seven years without any Christian testimony in it? Can you imagine how vile and how wicked it's going to become? I'm glad I get to go on the rapture. I wouldn't want to live through that. The whole debacle of man doing that that he wants to do, of doing those things that he would think is right and proper, and the false gods that will be erected. And it's going to be just as it's summed up here, they are filthy. There's none good. What a reminder. In verses four through five, we see a great question. Of all the workers of iniquity, no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread and call not upon the Lord, there were they in great fear, for God is in the generation of the righteous. Generation of the righteous is gone, then the ungodly will take over. There'll be no peace. There'll be no comfort. There'll be no relaxing because the righteous and God is gone. Don't they even have knowledge? They live in great fear. Can you imagine the great fear always being fearful? For God is in the generation of the righteous. He is there with the godly. He is there as we walk with him and as we serve him and we remove that from the world. Then we see the problem that comes upon this world. Verses six and seven, you have shamed the counsel of the poor because the Lord is his refuge. It's amazing even now in the society in which we live how they want to shame the counsel of God. They want to shame you because, well, you know, if God was such a great God, why aren't you rich? Why am I rich? Why am I the one that gets to make all the millions? But you notice how many of those people making all the millions, how unhappy they are? I was reading an article just a couple of days ago about Matthew Perry. So all the money this guy had, he started buying this ketamine, just guessing that's how you say it, and he would buy it illegally, and he's paying $10,000 to $50,000 a week for this drug. And the night that he died, he's got this personal assistant. It's early in the morning, he goes, hit me up. And so he loads him up with some dope, and he goes on, he goes, hit me up again. And before the assistant left, he said, hit me up with a big one. And then he climbed into the hot tub where they find him dead just a little bit later. Is there any happiness in money? No. No happiness in money. Wealth and fame? I mean, at one point, he was on the top. There ain't happiness there? There was no peace at all. It's drug after drug after drug after drug. And we could go through the whole list of them. All of what society looks at to say, oh, they've made it to the top. Look at them. They're rich. They're this. They're that. I'm telling you, they don't have the peace that I have when I pillow my head. The peace that you have when you pillow your head. Don't buy the lie. that this world says you gotta have the wealth, you gotta have all this stuff of the world to be happy. That's not where happiness is found. Happiness is found in a right relationship with Jesus Christ. And to the world, we may look poor and we may look foolish, but that's okay, I don't care what the world thinks of me. I wanna see them saved, but I'm not gonna let them drag me to hell. I'm going to heaven, I want them to come with me. I don't wanna go with them. Look at verse seven, it says, oh, that the salvation of Israel will come out of Zion. When the Lord bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice and Israel shall be glad. The salvation of Israel. We could put in there the salvation of Kevin Metzinger. Salvation, put your name in there if you know Christ. The Lord purchased me. Heaven's my home. I'm no longer captive to the sin of this world. I've got a better place I'm going. I'm passing through here, headed there. And what a day it will be when I... The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. You think that just because you're a good person, The Bible says there is no good. But if you think, I can be a good enough person to work my way to heaven, I'd remind you Ephesians 2, 8, 9, there's none that do it good, no not one. No man's gonna get to heaven on his goodness, on his looks, on his wealth, or on his fame. The only way is through Jesus Christ. If Jesus is not your savior, you need to accept him today. And if he is your savior, Don't be foolish, live for Him. Let's impact this world in which we live. Because we have to admit, our time here is short. Either because of our age, or because of the fact He's coming soon. Either way, our time is short. Let's impact this world for Christ. Lord Jesus, I love you and I thank you for your goodness and your love. I pray that you would have your will done in this invitation, that you might be honored and glorified. Decisions would be made to bring glory to you. We love you. We ask these things in your blessed name. Amen. Would you stand with me today? Lord spoken to your heart and encourage you to come. The altar is open. You're here without Christ as your savior. We'd have someone take a Bible, show you from the word of God how you can know that you're saved and on your way to heaven. Whatever your need, would you come as brother Foster leads us this first song? I surrender all to him I freely give. in his presence daily living. I surrender all. I surrender all. All to thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all. Jesus, I surrender. Humbly at his feet I bow. Worldly pleasures all forsaken. Take me, Jesus, take me now. I surrender. All to thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender. So this afternoon, following the afternoon service, we'll have a youth rally planning meeting. If you're going to be a part helping with the youth rally, we'd love for you to attend that meeting. We're going to have a guest speaker on September 1st, and again on the 8th. We'll have the Hardees with us on the 1st, and then Brother Gibson's going to be with us on the 8th. Patch the Pirate Program starting back, they'll start up on September 11th. There's a sign-up sheet and foyer, those needing books, the cost of the books, $10 each, the money's due by September 1st, so we can get those ordered. We have outreach on September 7th at nine o'clock, and so if you can come go on outreach with us, that'd be a blessing. The Youth Rally, scheduled on September 20th at seven o'clock, mark that down. and plan to come to Youth Rally. Let's close in a word of prayer. Good to be together today. Let's pray. Lord, we love you and we thank you for your great love to us. Thank you for your word that we can draw help and encouragement from. Help us to walk with you and make an impact in this world around us to share the joy of Jesus Christ. And Lord, that you would live in and through us, that we might impact this world for you. Thank you for your word that comforts and studies and encourages us as we walk for you in this world in which we live. We love you and we thank you for our time together today. We ask these things in your blessed name. Amen. You're dismissed.