Psalm 14
Dixit insipiens
1 The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” *
All are corrupt and commit abominable acts;
there is none who does any good.
2 The Lord looks down from heaven upon us all, *
to see if there is any who is wise,
if there is one who seeks after God.
3 Every one has proved faithless;
all alike have turned bad; *
there is none who does good; no, not one.
4 Have they no knowledge, all those evildoers *
who eat up my people like bread
and do not call upon the Lord?
5 See how they tremble with fear, *
because God is in the company of the righteous.
6 Their aim is to confound the plans of the afflicted, *
but the Lord is their refuge.
7 Oh, that Israel’s deliverance would come out of Zion! *
when the Lord restores the fortunes of his people,
Jacob will rejoice and Israel be glad.
A “fool” in the bible is described as one who: hates correction, hates discipline, despises knowledge, scoffs at the righteous, takes advantage of the righteous, is lazy, schemes against the righteous, mocks others, lacks understanding, engages in folly, is loud, partakes in violence, give full vent to their anger, comes to ruin, leads others astray, spreads slander, lacks judgement, finds pleasure in evil conduct, says there is no God.
We have all, at some point in our life been a fool and will be a fool about something in the future and we are probably being foolish about something right now.
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction. Proberbs 1:7
We are all fools. But learning to be led by the Lord away from our foolishness begins with understanding how capable we are of ruining our lives with our own foolishness. The “fear of the Lord” is realizing that God, who is trying to rescue me from myself, is who I am fighting when I resist discipline and hate knowledge and engage in folly and scheme against others and on and on. When I am being a fool, I am sending my life into ruin, not God. That should make me afraid, very afraid to not listen to the Lord.
We have all said, without words, “there is no God”. It is evident that we “say it in our heart” when we are acting like a fool. When we get involved in corruption. When we lose hope. When we give in and live for the world. When we do any of the things a fool does. Our actions betray our words. We might say we believe in God but if we live like there are no consequences to our deeds, our deeds speak over what we say.
But a “fool” does not repent. A fool does not take responsibility for her actions. A fool does not love his neighbor. So when I learn from my ways and my conscience is stricken by what I have done and I make amends I am “fearing the Lord”.
2 The Lord looks down from heaven upon us all, *
to see if there is any who is wise,
if there is one who seeks after God.
This reminds me of the story of Job. To be found righteous is to be tested. Those who hold to their faith and do not succumb to fools stand out. They are not unnoticed my God. Job endured a test that none of us could pass. The loss of his wealth, is family and his health and those who remained encouraged his to give up his faith and told them this was all his fault. When Jesus teaches us to ask God not to lead us into temptation, I believe he is talking about being tested. It is that, “fear of the Lord” from earlier. That understanding that I am capable of ruining my life. Being aware that if I am tested, I will probable fail. I need you to deliver me from evil Lord. That is probably the wisest we could be.
The majority of us are corrupt and evil. The majority of what I do is corrupt and evil. There are very few moments throughout my day when my thoughts are not centered on me and how I can improve my life. My natural inclination is to not trust God.
The “daily bread” that God blesses us with is for us to live in a way that we don’t have too much and we don’t have too little because we are making sure that our neighbor has enough first. But the way of a fool is to feed off our neighbor. A fool takes more than his share by feeding off what is his neighbor’s rather than trust God to give us all what we need.
5 See how they tremble with fear, *
because God is in the company of the righteous.
6 Their aim is to confound the plans of the afflicted, *
but the Lord is their refuge.
A fool is always anxious and afraid. Fools fear not having. Not having enough. Losing what they have. They fear those who don’t fear that because they can’t control or manipulate them. They become obsessed with their schemes.
7 Oh, that Israel’s deliverance would come out of Zion! *
when the Lord restores the fortunes of his people,
Jacob will rejoice and Israel be glad.
The only thing we can do that is not foolish is to wait on God to act. To take matters into our own hands is to join in with the fools. Waiting for God to act to rescue and restore His people is at the heart of wisdom. I often want to take matters into my own hands because God seems to be unaware or unconcerned with my problem or worse it seems that God doesn’t care that I am suffering and those who are corrupt are getting away with it. That is the test and taking matters into my own hands is failing the test.