Psalms 14

Psalms 14:1-7

The universality of evil and its folly: God’s experience of man. To the chief musician, [a psalm] of David. The distress is over: it does not revive. Is it not always true that of what is thoroughly gone through with God, the result abides: true victories are permanent ones? And good reason: for the victory is really found in the judgment and elimination of that confidence in false trusts which leaves us instead with God our confidence, with a strength that the hour of need but justifies and manifests. Faith, faith, faith: that is the lesson of lessons; that is the effectual worker, and in every part of the Christian life and walk. The soul can now, in peace as to itself, contemplate its surroundings; the enemy, once so formidable, becomes now as weak and foolish as once he seemed strong and prosperous. Jehovah has appeared, is seen to be with the generation of the righteous. and that at once changes everything with regard to their persecutor, who is only dashing himself against the rock. A terrible scene indeed it is to contemplate, and man is seen with the “madness in his heart” of which the preacher speaks. The floods are abroad. and the “floods lift up their waves,” but in vain necessarily: they break themselves against the limit God has affixed. God Himself has taken man’s measure, and what is he? But a fool, that knows not His maker. There are seven verses, a real septenary of 4 + 3; the first four being the testing of man; the last three the manifestation of God, -and this very plainly marked. The estimate is complete, as it is brief. The verdict is easily reached, soon uttered. It is a judgment from which no appeal is possible. ( 1) These are emphatically the evil days, and the moral unity of the mass, already seen in the twelfth psalm, is still more solemnly asserted. The fool who says in his heart there is no God, is not an exception to the rest, though it be true that there will be a great leader in this direction, one who “opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped.” (2 Thessalonians 2:4.) But here the “fool” of the first sentence becomes a multitude in the very next, who “have corrupted themselves, have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.” This is, indeed, what man away from God naturally comes to; for God is the true life of man; and, as the body apart from the soul which is its life, corrupts, so does the soul, if it be apart from God. There cannot be exception here; no law is surer than is this: “there is none that doeth good.” (2) But Jehovah Himself will give His testimony. Knowing perfectly all hearts beforehand, He is yet not content to pronounce, save from actual experience. Looking down from heaven, He considers every soul of man among the children of Adam, to see if there is any one who truly understands, -who, aroused by the want and misery of his condition, seeks after Him whom men’s sins have shut off from them. (3) Alas, no! they have not sought nor cared: they have turned aside; they have gone after their lusts; none doeth good, no, not one. This the apostle long afterwards applies as a general truth, condemning absolutely the whole world. What the grace of God does is another matter. Apart from this there is a monotony of evil, one generation following another, only to add their own sins to their fathers’. This is the result then, God Himself being witness, certifying it from actual inspection of every individual among men. We may gather this comfort, even from so terrible a condition, that if there be one who does understand enough even to seek after God, God’s grace has wrought, He Himself has been the first seeker; and what an encouragement this for him who yet has not found, but only “seeketh.” We can realize then how it must be that, as the Lord has said, “every one that seeketh findeth.” Even amid the darkness, One to whom there is no darkness is on the way to find him whom by need and famine He has sought before. (4) But the workers of vanity, have they no knowledge, then? They would eat up God’s people just as they eat bread: in every respect like beasts, for these, too, call not on Jehovah." It is man’s privilege to know God; not knowing Him, he has no right human “knowledge.” “Workers of vanity,” therefore, they assuredly will be. The whole description is of a piece: the whole thing goes together. But the human beast here shows his fallen condition by his antipathies: he is against God and His people, as we see; he is such a beast as the serpent was when the devil got into him. Alas, that is really the case, that he has admitted the devil. (5) With the fifth verse, as already said, God Himself comes into the scene; and man is with Him, “God is with the generation of the righteous.” That is the real fear that comes upon the persecutor, the shadow of his approaching doom. These weak, despised people, how often have they, just by the light that shone out of them and around them, thrown a panic into the host of their adversaries! It is in effect what Peter says of the Christian: “If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you.” When Jehovah looked out from the fleeing Israelites upon the ranks of the pursuing Egyptians, He troubled the host of the Egyptians; and from the Red Sea down through the long march of history, this has been many times repeated. Without weapon lifted or hostile array, the people of God have forced upon the mightiest the conviction, “The Lord fighteth for them.” Well may they be afraid then! “They that be with us are more than they that be with them.” (2 Kings 6:16.) (6) Here, then, is the enemy’s limit. “Ye would put to shame the counsel of the humble; but Jehovah is his refuge.” “As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people.” (Psalms 125:2.) Blessed security! He who gave His life for the flock is with them, now “in the power of an endless life.” And He says Himself, “Because I live, ye shall live also.” (John 14:19.) (7) But the psalm ends with the salvation of Israel only in sight. It comes out of Zion, by the Deliverer there to come, the King once rejected, then to be greeted with the homage of a willing people. Suddenly this will be accomplished, and then their captivity will be turned as in a moment! “Jacob shall exult, Israel shall be glad.”