The Fatal Fool

All right, good morning, welcome. You guys make your way in. My name is Shane. I’m one of the pastors here, one of the bi vocational guys. Uh today we are continuing in our psalm series and usually we’re working through a book of the bible chapter by chapter uh today though is not like that, our recent series is not like that. So if you’re new and you’re just hopping in, we’re on psalm 14, so it’s kind of a standalone, more of a topical type of sermon today. So thank you for being here, we love having you. And today we’re gonna talk about some 14, like I said, it’s not exactly the easiest, it’s probably not one of the uh psalms that people, you know, can readily just be like, yeah psalm 90 psalm 23 people are usually like what psalm 14, what’s what’s that one? And so as you’ll see, uh it’s a tough one, but but there’s a lot of truth in it of course, and we want to draw that out. And so today, as we look, we see just the context of it is David is the author, he’s writing to his people, but it’s addressed to the chief musician, the choirmaster. And there’s a lot of things we know about David about his life, about different situations in his life, whether it’s before he was king as a shepherd being anointed Saul in his relationship and then as it becomes king, his mighty battles and what issues with his son and his son pursuing him and all this, we know a lot about David, but we don’t actually know a lot about this psalm in the context of when it was written during which scenario the next part is is it doesn’t really matter. Doesn’t change, it doesn’t change the context. It doesn’t change the meaning of it. So, what it does talk about though is pretty clear. That song was going to talk about a fool topic. The main topic is that of a fool. And so thinking about being a fool and doing foolish things. It kind of made me reminisce a little bit about all the foolish things I’ve done. I don’t have a great memory and I can still create a very long list of foolish things I’ve done. So I’m guessing you have been able to sit out there and do the same, right? There’s some image right here, You know, your 12. That is a great idea. When you’re 12. Probably done a few things. It’s like, yeah, that’s done that. But In light of those situations, looking back, you know, they always say hindsight is 2020. Yeah, true. But I bet you the facts were still there. That that’s not a good idea when it was happening, right? It’s not like, Oh, I didn’t know. And you usually have two types of friends. One guys like, I don’t know, man, you could get hurt. All right. The other bodies like, what are you talking about? You know how cool that’d be. Go do it. You should do this just egging you on. Right? So I’m convinced that the wisdom, the knowledge, the facts is not the problem, right? We still make foolish choices in light of all those things being right in front of us. And that happens even today. Younger, older, the facts are readily available most of the time. Now the bible is replete with information on one. How to be wise and how to make prudent decisions. And it’s also both implicitly and explicitly uh, just labeled with how not to be a fool, not how, how to not make bad decisions, how to make wise decisions and not be a man or woman of indiscretion that those can be kind of funny examples. But David is not talking about that as he pins this and he talks about a fool. He’s not talking about just some common, you know, poor decision that we make. Oh, man, I went out and I spend too much money on a credit card. Now. I gotta take months and months to pay that thing off. Right, That’s, there’s some consequences there. Or I stayed away too late playing video games. I missed my alarm. I’m falling asleep at work, yep. That’s not a good decision either. There’s a lot of different decisions we can we can make. You tell a lie. It’s like, man that hurt my relationship with that person. It’s gonna take some time to develop that relationship to build that bond and that trust back up. Those are obviously foolish decisions too. But the fool that David is speaking about is very specific here. It is specifically speaking about a person who denies, rejects or ignores God. That is the context. And that is the meaning here. When he speaks of the fool, it is the worst choice with the worst consequences. It has eternal consequences With that being the context. The foundation here, I’m gonna read Psalm 14, it’s seven verses and then we’re gonna look at it verse by verse as we go through it. Here’s what it says. A fool says in his heart. There is no God, they are corrupt. They do vile deeds. There is no one who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven on the human race to see if there is one who is wise, one who seeks God, all have turned away all the like have become corrupt. There is no one who does good, not even one will evil will evil doers never understand. They consume my people as they consume bread. They do not call on the Lord, then they will be filled with dread. For God is with those who are righteous. New centers frustrate the plans of the oppressed. But the Lord is his refuge. Oh that Israel’s deliverance would come from Zion. When the Lord restores the fortunes of his people, let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad. So again in this it is important when we think about words Um, it’s not a kind word, but we could, we could say to somebody or to say about somebody. They are really dumb. And you think about the english language and it’s like, well, what do you mean? They are not smart, like they can’t comprehend or that was just kind of a not a wise decision. Or do you mean the literal sense of the word? The definition that they can’t speak right? There’s, there’s so many ways that we can say something. So when David says somebody is a fool, it’s good to understand the context of that. You know. Is he just mad and calling somebody a name? Well, he uses the word in the ball. And if you remember in first Samuel 25, there’s a story about a man named the ball and this is uh, this is a story when David and his men were out and they spent months protecting the flock and the employees, which probably were made up of the balls family and his hired hands out in this field, he protected the ball, the ball’s people and his property, his sheep. And then a couple months later when it was sheep shearing time, David had sent a couple of his men and which would have been customary to say, hey, you know, we spent months out here, we protect you two people, There’s nothing lost, nothing stolen, no predators came. We we fended them off so that all of your possessions would still be there. We would like to ask you for some provisions for our people just in return. And the Ball is angry. He says wicked things. And he says, sends David’s men back saying no right shamefully sends them back. David very furious, leaves his camp and his intention is to kill, not just in the Ball, the entire camp, every male in the camp, thankfully. The Ball’s wife Abigail comes out, she heard about the situation, She gathered, provision goes out meets David and and, and um gives them those provisions and says, hey, I didn’t hear this. I didn’t know this was going on. But this is what she says about her husband. Just pay no attention. My Lord to that wicked man. The Ball, he is just like his name. His name means fool and folly goes with him. As for me, your servant. I did not see the men the Lord sent. So the term the Ball meaningful is not about somebody who can’t comprehend. It’s not talking about somebody’s ability to understand it is talking about somebody who is morally corrupt somebody who is wicked and insulin, that is the context of what a fool would be here is the moral corruption of a person. And verse one speaks about that. It’s not just uh, this external thing. It’s where do they say it? It’s in their heart. Verse one tells us that a fool says in his heart, there is no God, some translations say there is no God. Some just say no God. And there is a little bit of a difference where it’s, somebody might just be an atheist and say, hey, there is no such thing as God. God does not exist. This is all made up. This is foolishness, right? I reject the whole sentiment of God being real altogether. Right? They just, there is no God. You can also have somebody who says no God in a sense of yeah, God might be reel or I believe you have the christian God, but not for me. Right? God, not my thing, no God. Right? No, they’re saying no for themselves. No God. While they may seem different, they both end up in the same conclusion in the same scenario. If somebody does not know God, if somebody rejects God, whether that’s blatantly whether that’s outright, whether that’s just rejecting God in their heart, they’re outside the family of God, there, outside the protection of God, They are not saved. So, they do end up in the same position. Both would be considered a fool because that is the most unwise unlock vehicle decision. Any person can ever make it with eternal consequences. And I know life deals us very hard things. Some of us had very different upbringings, backgrounds, things that have happened to us this year, right. Whether it’s challenges growing up, whether it’s homes that weren’t stable, whether it’s medical issues right now, a death of a loved one, whatever it might be, there are a lot of things that come up that are difficult, but at the end of the day, when we stand before God, no matter if it was difficulty or we had it so easy, we just had everything handed to us that were like, I don’t I don’t see the need for God, no matter what it is, no one will stand before God on judgment with that. With no excuse, right? Everybody is gonna be without excuse romans. One tells us this romans, one says 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 and the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. All people will stand before God without excuse and everything attest to God. If we look around, whether it’s cosmology, whether it’s anthropology, whether it’s geology, archaeology, it doesn’t matter what branch of science, you want to go down all of history itself attest to God. So it’s not in a sense, an unfair position because all will stand before God with that opportunity of proof, With no excuse. And we have to look at the fool because the fool doesn’t just say in his heart, it’s not just his heart, but it’s his actions also, right? So it’s no surprise though. What we believe like, what’s in our heart, what’s in our mind eventually is gonna come out and what we do, right? Our mind is gonna ultimately control our hands and our feet, right? Our actions. Now, it might not be to the same degree, but in a varying degree, it’s gonna affect what you do, right? So, if I think in my mind, which hopefully I never think is I get so angry at somebody, I want to kill them, doesn’t mean I’m gonna kill them. Hopefully not, right? But to a varying degree, you will respond in like kind, there’s hate there. And I have an opportunity to slander him to say something to be mean to him to interact with him. It’s probably gonna come out eventually in some degree to what you think to what is in your heart. And so we see that here, what a person thinks in his heart, there is no God, ultimately it will come out in the way that they live for themselves or for something else, but not forgotten. And it’s a difficult but true statement that I want to bring up. But it’s this a fool. A person who does not know, does not accept God cannot please God pam. There’s probably some initial reaction to that statement, which I will go into is well Shane. I see people who are not believers and they serve the poor, They are faithful to their families, right? To their wife and their kids. They perform acts of heroism, They do something, you know, amazing. Sacrificial. Is that not pleasing to God? Well, let’s look at a couple verses here, hebrews 11 in Romans 14. Hebrews 11 says this without faith, it is impossible to please him. God. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him romans 14, Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. So the hard part about this is we have a challenge in the way that we perceive two distinct realities to distinctions of good and bad. The way we look at that one is from an external point of view, an outward point of view, right? We see these things, people will do the outward actions that they do. And you think about this if you ever seen a beam scale a judicial scale, right? That weighs good and good and bad, right? That that’s the thought is that’s a faulty logic in the way that we see good and bad and then we see Christianity. It’s not if I can do more good things and then it just right. These external actions that weighs down this bean scale and it outweighs the bad that I’ve done. That’s that’s a faulty logic when we look at good and bad. The bible is very clear, even as as jesus speaks and he says, you know, Yeah, you’ve heard it said, don’t commit adultery and that outward action don’t physically commit adultery. What does jesus say? But I tell you you’ve lusted after someone in your heart, you’ve commit adultery in your heart and so do not murder. Alright, I didn’t physically kill somebody. He says yeah but if you hated somebody in your heart you murdered them in your heart, right? So there is this outward perspective that we look at and we say well they do so much good but God has a different measuring rod. He has a different standard and that’s the standard of the heart. And so if it doesn’t perceive from the heart of faith, a heart that loves and knows God, then it proceeds from something else. Right? We do it for a different reason than to glorify God. It’s to make ourselves feel better. It’s because we value something over something over God right? We it proceeds from a heart that does not want to give God the glory. The motivation of the heart is important and that’s what God is going after. That’s the internal peace that you can’t see. We so many times only see the external R. C. Sproul says it like this from a biblical perspective. To do a good deed in its fullest sense requires not only that the deed can form outwardly to the standard of God’s law, but that it proceeds from a heart that loves him and wants to honor him without a heart submitted to God. There is no act that pleases him because our inner motivation, our inner heart is not conformed to the submission and the will of christ and it ultimately is for our own desire or glory. This I understand may sound kind of hottie kind of Aryan coming from a believer. Speaking of an unbeliever as a fool and I would just say this, I don’t actually you know, recommend just being going out and be like the bible calls you a fool because you don’t believe that. It’s not a way that we’re gonna approach evangelism, right? But but the truth is, as David is penning this. It is it is true that is what a fool would be in a moral corrupt position of rejecting and denying God. But it should not come across as this haughty, arrogant position. In fact, it should do the opposite for us. What should it drive us to think? Well, one, it should remind us that that was us. But that was us. At one point in time, we were the fool. I was the fool. I didn’t know God. I lived my own life separate from him not desiring to give him glory, but to live my life in a way that really glorified me. That was me from the moment Adam and Eve sin right? We have been riddled with sin. Nature has been riddled with sin. That’s what Ephesians two in psalm 51 speak about right from from the beginning. we are creatures and natures of wrath right? We are Children of Wrath. We have been born and conceived in sin that has affected all of us. So we don’t look outside and think, wow, they are a fool. We should look inside and say that was us and only by the grace and glory of God have I been saved and I want to see the same for them. But it is true. We are by nature, Children of Wrath. None of us is pure and holy and Godly just because we’re who we are. It’s we’re all affected by the the statement, There’s a song and I heard a couple weeks ago and it calls it the tyranny of sin and the curse of sins tyranny. It affects all of us. So if we’ve all been affected, we are all under the curse of sin. What is the difference between the fool and a believer? Well, it’s the fact that as a believer we have, we’ve acknowledged that corrupt nature. We’ve acknowledged that we are sinful, that we are totally depraved that we need God, that we recognize God as the Lord and savior of our life and we accept him. We lay down our life as a bond servant to christ to the will and conforming to God’s every plan for us. That is the difference between somebody who accepts christ and somebody who rejects christ second Corinthians tells us when that happens 2nd 5 17 says therefore if anyone is in christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone. The new has come, my old sin nature has been replaced. Or Ezekiel will say it like this, he takes the heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh as the Israelites turned from their idols back to God, he replaced their heart. I can’t replace my own heart, You can’t replace your own heart. We can’t change our sin nature. Only God can do that. And he gives us a new nature, a spiritual nature that stands righteous before God with a new heart because that’s where the motivations of our all of our actions come from is our heart. And without that new heart, we cannot please God. But he gives us a new heart. That is the beauty of the Gospel. That is the beauty of us realizing and reflecting on we were that fool and this is what God has done for us. We want God to do that for all the people were involved with that. We can reach out to that. We get to interact with. That should be our hope. Why? Because it’s our only hope. It’s the only hope for the entire world, our hope and all people is jesus christ and we can view this sometimes as as fairly difficult, especially when somebody’s mean to you specifically. Somebody’s wronged you specifically or they’re just seem exceedingly wicked. What I hope, we don’t see is that man, that guy is a fool and he is beyond saving. That guy cannot. There’s just no hope for him. That is a wrong perspective of the gospel. That is the wrong way to view the gospel right? They have the hope of jesus christ I think about Matthew Levi who was hated and despised by his own people, right? Because well, he sided with the romans and became a tax collector and started collecting money from his own people, probably extorting it to some degree overcharging and so he was hated by his own people. It probably wasn’t easy for them to be like that guy is such a traitor. There’s no hope that guy is too far gone. And yet We see Jesus draws him in changes his life, he gets saved, he becomes a disciple, an apostle. And then not coincidentally, he pens Matthew 28, the Great Commission calling all of us to go out and seek and save the lost go therefore and make disciples of all nations. He tells us baptizing them in the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and behold I am with you to the very end changes his life completely radically 1 80. That’s the term repent right. That means the turn to change to flip around. So as we individually and collectively try to live out and fulfill the great commission Verse four brings us head on to another truth that we will experience though here’s where it says will evil doers ever understand, right well, they never understand the truth is many will not, some will, but many will not. Matthew continues to tell us, enter the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction and those who enter are many for the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life and those who find it are few. It is true that as we share the Gospel, there are probably gonna be more people who you will interact with that will reject the Gospel than may accept the Gospel. But the point is, we don’t know and it is not our job and it is not our responsibility to determine who would and who would not because some would say they might have thrown out Matthew, they definitely would have thrown out paul it’s not our job, it is our job to be communicators of the Gospel, to proclaim the gospel, to share the good news with any and every person possible that we can, it is God’s job and we need to let him do his job and not stepping on. That is to draw people in to change their life and to see that they are saved to impart the Holy Spirit upon them, we can’t do that. We need to take care of our task is to share the gospel, to be faithful disciples, making additional disciples, but in the rejection some you will find will not just be satisfied with rejecting the Gospel, but that they want to destroy that thought completely and hinder others from believing the same right? So they there’s a strays in here that says they consume my people like they consume bread. So he’s not talking about cannibalism, which would be a bad thing too. But he’s talking about persecution, right? Is these people want to come after. If you read through the new testament, paul will go from city to city to city. What happened? There’s actually people who would follow him around come behind him and try to change the mind of the people that he had been preaching to. He would they would rally them up sometimes they got him so riled up that they drug pulled out and beat him one time they thought they had successfully killed him. Though some are not just satisfied with saying no, not for me, they will say not for me and I despise that you’re telling other people of this gospel also, but again, we don’t want that to deter us. Our job is to continue to faithfully preach the gospel. And what we’ll find is that even some of those will come to christ because even in that facade, I believe it’s a facade as they as they’re coming at you is they might stand so confident and so firm and why they don’t believe and and here’s why. And yet they can’t answer the greatest questions of life. Think about origin, how about morality or meaning or destiny? They cannot answer those questions the way a christian answer those questions, right? Where did we come from? Well, I don’t know, it’s just this big blob or bang or whatever it was right. It’s we can’t answer where we came from or or morality, why is it right or wrong to do something? Shouldn’t it be subjective? Well, what is that standard? A believer can answer that because God is that standard? He is that measuring stick. How about meaning, God gives us meaning that there’s a purpose to life, why we were created what were created for how to live out a life that is gonna be fulfilling to give glory to God and then our destiny, that there’s more to life than just this. This is not all there is. And so as they may stand in opposition to the bible to the Gospel, I believe inside there is a fear and it talks about a fear and trembling that occurs in verse five because when they think about these things, they don’t have the answers and they may be so obstinate that right now they don’t seem fearful or terror have any terror, but at the time that they stand before God, there will be terror and fear again are hope though, is that even as the person on the cross, the thief on the cross beside jesus proclaims at the last moment, who knows what his life was filled with? At that last moment he gets saved from the wrath and terror of God. So to the very end, we don’t give up hope. We continue with that hope In the Bible. We’ll talk about here in verse six as as we see there being persecuted and there’s challenges and people don’t like them and there’s hardships and it is the structure of a lot of the psalms as you read it. Um as you read, a lot of psalms, David will start off or the psalms will start off and there’s a lot of emotion. There might be, you know, here discouragement, there might be anger, there might be frustration, there might be a lot of emotion in the at the end as he pours out his heart to God. It’s a familiar structure is at the end, it ends in this praise and worship of God. Hopefully that’s your experience though, as you have tough times and you can pour out to God honestly and openly that you sense that presence and that you come back to God in a sense of that Lord, we know you’re good and this is where he goes in this struggle as he sees his people being oppressed. He goes back and says, but yet Lord, you are our refuge right read through the bible. If you just type in some of these words of it is again full of talking about God as our refuge, our fortress, our strength, our rock, our defense, our shelter. They have the same connotation as we take comfort in the protection and the providence and the sovereignty of jesus christ of his will for our lives and the control of all times he is in control and we can take comfort in that. And as jesus is our hope verse seven kind of is the epitome of all of this. It brings it together when he cry out to God just hoping for that future life here will never be perfect. We do still live under the tyranny of sin. But one day, what is our hope one day is that we reside and preside with God in heaven where all this is taken care of. Right John 1633 reminds us that God has one, he has the victory, he has overcome sin and that is our hope and that is the hope of everyone who does not know and believe God that they would eventually trust in christ. I want to leave you with revelation 21 verses one through five because this is what I long for what I hope for and what I hope you do too. So then then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth passed away and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold the dwelling place of God is with man, he will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning or crying or pain for the former things have passed away. And he, who has seated on the throne said, behold I am making all things new also, he said, write this down for these words are trustworthy and true God, Be the glory. Amen. Amen Lord! Thank you for today, Lord. We ask that you would capture the hearts, you would draw in the hearts of every person who does not know you, who has not put their trust or faith in you and Lord, we also praise you and thank you as a reminder for what you have done for us. We were the fool and we are so thankful that you paid the price for our sin that you paid that penalty that we could not afford. Lord. We ask that you would use us as tools and instruments for the gospel to go out and fermented to get saved. Amen