This is Us
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If you have your Bible (and I hope you do) please turn with me to the book of Psalms. Turn to Psalm 14, our psalm for this morning. We’re just gonna jump right in.
The basic message of the psalm is this: Humanity is universally depraved, yet there is a people who have been and will be delivered.
This is an unbelievably unpopular view. When I was in college, we went round and round; we argued about every kind of theological viewpoint and there were only a handful of students who could bring themselves to believe in the doctrine of total or universal depravity.
Several of my professors (men and women who had lived much longer than us and who had seen and experienced much more)—these older, wiser Christians were more readily willing to admit, along with Psalm 14, that mankind is utterly depraved and that this is a universal truth.
This is not a fun truth. It’s not a great doctrine to discuss or to preach, but it is an important and immensely biblical doctrine. Apart from Christ, without a relationship with God, our default position is one of depravity.
This is a rather gloomy view to hold. But, you see, it’s not a view that man made up; it’s not a view that I chose to have because I’m some kind of relentless pessimist.
This is God’s view of the matter. The Lord looks down from heaven, says the psalmist, and sees mankind in this position.
This is us from God’s perspective.
Corruption is Universal
Corruption is Universal
The word for fool is the Hebrew word nabal. In Isaiah, we see the picture of what a fool is in Biblical language. A fool is not just a silly, thoughtless person as we might think of from a movie or from real life. A fool, biblically, is not just someone who’s intellectually challenged but rather one who is altogether ungodly.
6 For fools speak folly,
their hearts are bent on evil:
They practice ungodliness
and spread error concerning the Lord;
the hungry they leave empty
and from the thirsty they withhold water.
In our psalm today, the fool speaks. Notice from where the fool speaks and what the fool speaks.
The fool speaks from their heart. What the fool says may not be public; it could be secret. But even if it’s secret, it’s no less powerful. The heart is the controlling center of a person.
The fool says, in his heart: “There is no God.”
And that’s what really drives him and his thinking. What the fool means, then, is that God does not matter, He doesn’t count.
The consequences of this belief:
1 The fool says in his heart,
“There is no God.”
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
there is no one who does good.
You might be thinking: “Fools. Who would think such a thing?! How can someone be so foolish?”
But it’s worse than we think. David uses plural pronouns and plural verb forms:
Their hearts…they are corrupt…their deeds are vile...
David’s not thinking of a isolated fool here and there.
David’s not thinking of that one foolish friend or that village fool; he’s not thinking about a particular case but a universal condition. The whole race consists of nabals, of fools!
2 The Lord looks down from heaven
on all mankind
to see if there are any who understand,
any who seek God.
3 All have turned away, all have become corrupt;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.
There is no way of overturning this verdict. The Lord Yahweh has dropped in and checked it out thoroughly. The Lord looks down—a word that indicates close and careful scrutiny. He’s put us all under the microscope, squinting His eyes, and pulling into focus the deepest parts of us.
What He sees is, unlike His verdict in Genesis before the fall, not good.
There are some who blatantly deny God re verse 1: “There is no God.”
And there are others who simply neglect. The Lord is looking to see if there are any who seek Him. And He comes up empty. People simply have no desire for God, no longing to know Him or enjoy Him.
Again, you might be thinking of someone else, but I know many people who have set in a pew for years who have no hunger or thirst for God, no longing, no craving to have Him or to know Him.
Again with the plural words, David shares the verdict.
3 All have turned away, all have become corrupt;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.
That last sentence—not even one—might be there for those of us who’d like to believe that David is exaggerating his case a little bit. “Oh, now. David’s just using hyperbole to make a point; he doesn’t really mean it.”
NOT. EVEN. ONE. It’s as if David is saying, “Now I want you to understand that this is true literally, individually, exhaustively, universally.”
You might disagree with David’s assessment, but then you’re not the author of this psalm, are you?
We’re trying to understand this psalm and follow its argument.
Paul picks up on this in Romans 3. There, Paul argues that every man—whether religious (Jew) or pagan (Gentile), is under the power of sin:
9 What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. 10 As it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
11 there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”
Corruption is Universal
Corruption is Universal
When David is writing this psalm, he’s not depicting a Moabite fool or a Philistine fool. He writes about himself and everyone around him—Israelite fools.
Psalm 14 reflects the situation in Israel, among the professing people of God. No exemptions here.
We like to believe that we may be exceptions. But what about Psalm 14:2-3…what is it you don’t get?
This is us. This is a snippet of our biography.
A good friend of ours passed away at the end of May and his funeral was Friday in Kansas City. Bob was 86 and he loved Jesus. He was an engineer and an incredible intellect. He had a Master’s degree from Columbia University (that’s an Ivy League school; you know, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc.).
But Bob never let on. I didn’t know where his degree was from until I read it in his obituary. He knew—he’d tell you—that he was no different from anyone else. He wasn’t above anyone else; no better, no worse. He knew he was just ordinary, common human clay and a miserable sinner like everybody else. Bob knew and lived his life with the understanding that his condition and his need were the same as anyone else.
We tend to flatter ourselves into thinking that we are somehow exceptions. “Look at me! Look at my life! Look at my degrees (I stuck them on the wall for you to see)! Look at all my accomplishments! I’m not corrupt. I do a lot a excellent stuff. I do good! I don’t know who Psalm 14 is talking about, but it sure as shootin’ ain’t me!”
We flatter ourselves. And Psalm 14 (and others like it) make sure to fully flatten our self-flattery.
If we accept what Psalm 14 has to say, maybe we’ll let it season our prayers. Listen to this old Puritan prayer:
But in my Christian walk I am still in rags;
my best prayers are stained with sin;
my penitential tears are so much impurity;
my confessions of wrong are so many
aggravations of sin;
I need to repent of my repentance;
I need my tears to be washed;
I never do anything else but depart from Thee, and if ever I get to heaven it will be because Thou willest it, and for no other reason beside. I am sinful even in my closest walk with Thee; it is of Thy mercy I died not long ago...
My heart is an unexhausted fountain of sin, a river of corruption since childhood days, flowing on in every pattern of behavior.
>We are—it’s clear—a corrupt people.
If we believe verses 1-3 (and we should), then when we come to the next verses we meet up with this inexplicable fact. It can’t be explained.
“If verses 1-3 are true, how is it that I read what I read in the remaining verses?”
In the verses that follow what we’ve just read about universal corruption, about no one doing good, no even one; about all turning away, all becoming corrupt, now, NOW! we come to verse 4 and we read these unbelievable words:
“MY PEOPLE”
All of verses 1-3 taken into consideration, and still the Lord calls some of these “MY PEOPLE.”
We are forced to stop here, to pause and take a moment to be amazed by grace.
Grace is Flabbergasting
Grace is Flabbergasting
For the Lord Almighty, Holy and Blameless, Righteous and True, Perfect and Eternal to call any of these corrupt, no-good fools “My People” is only possible because of His grace—His astonishing, astounding, amazing, surprising, flabbergasting grace.
As the Lord looks down and sees the corruption of the people, their denial of Him, and the foolish evildoers, He sees those who are His—those He has redeemed and miraculously made His own. “My people,” says the Lord as He sees them amid all the corrupt and depraved.
It might help to look at a familiar passage in the New Testament that makes this more explicit.
Think of Ephesians 2 where Paul tells us what we were. We were dead. Dead. Dead in our trespasses and sins.
Corpses, you know, respond to nothing, least of all the gospel.
We were dead and dominated by sin and Satan. We walked in step with him. We conducted our lives according to the lusts and desires of our flesh.
We were damned—by nature children of wrath.
1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.
This is us. This is our bio. We are, on our own, lifeless and helpless and hopeless.
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
Why should God do anything like that? Why would He love us? Why would He want good for us? Why would He call those who believe in Him “my people”???
Grace.
Not long ago, as we worked our way through 1 Corinthians, we read these verses in chapter 6:
9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
This is our Psalm 14:1-3 condition. But Paul continues:
11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
That’s what we WERE. By grace, it’s not what we are now!
Grace is Flabbergasting
Grace is Flabbergasting
Please tell me grace still blows your mind!
Please tell me you don’t think you deserve grace even a little!
Please, please tell me you’re still amazed/flabbergasted by grace!
We should wake up every morning with a fresh awareness of grace and an equally fresh awareness that we are yet undeserving. That we are, by grace, the people of Lord by faith in Jesus Christ is purely the action of the merciful God.
>Not only does God show grace to some, but to those recipients of grace, they also find in Him a shelter, a refuge—the powerful presence of the omnipotent God.
4 Do all these evildoers know nothing?
They devour my people as though eating bread;
they never call on the Lord.
5 But there they are, overwhelmed with dread,
for God is present in the company of the righteous.
6 You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor,
but the Lord is their refuge.
7 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
When the Lord restores his people,
let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!
God is Our Refuge
God is Our Refuge
The corrupt and depraved assault God’s people. The Lord has a people—“My people” as He calls them—and they are suffering.
They’re being devoured, swallowed up. It happened then, and it happens now.
All over the world, our brothers and sisters in Christ are persecuted—tortured, killed, taken from their homes only to watch them burn. Sometimes they themselves are burned alive or mutilated. We don’t hear the half of it and when we do, we turn a deaf ear because it’s nothing new. Month after month, it’s the same story.
But those who attack the Lord’s people have miscalculated. They’ve messed up. They meet something they had not counted on. We read that they are overwhelmed with dread.
Why are they afraid? Why would they be terrified?
Because they discover that God is both present with and protecting His people. Here they are, picking on, attacking, brutalizing God’s people, and then—whoops-a-daisy—they realize that God Almighty is present!
For God is present in the company of the righteous.
The enemies of God and of God’s people apparently didn’t see the sign posted: “Beware of Sheep.”
You touch God’s people and you will find yourself—sooner or later—having to deal with their God.
The response of heaven to those crushing God’s people is the terror of judgment. Yahweh delivers His people by judging and destroying their enemies. This is the fervent and steadfast hope of the Lord’s battered people: the salvation and restoration of His people!
Every enemy will be liquidated and every danger eliminated.
This may seem far off, a long way down the road. And it might be. But there is no doubt about it.
Psalm 14:7 doesn’t speak of some “if” but of a “when”—when the Lord restores His people.
Final salvation is certain. After misery comes mercy.
Now this doesn’t bring immediate relief. This doesn’t solve every problem right now. But it will.
We might be in a pit, but we have assurance of God’s complete deliverance. It’s on the way. And that keeps the floor from crumbling beneath us.
The Lord sees the corruption of man. He sees His people. And He’s with them, protecting them as any good father would.
I’ve told my kids many times that they don’t need to be afraid, that they are safe; I will protect them and stand up for them always. I learned from a really good father.
On one of my Father’s Day presents, Miracle drew a picture of me in comic strip style interacting with a dangerous stranger. He drew my arm extended out, punching the stranger, the stranger’s eyes X’d out. I said, “That’s right. I have never punched anyone, but I sure would if my wife or kids were in danger.”
The Lord is present. He’s protecting. He will deliver.
This (Psalm 14) is us—depraved and then rescued, adopted into God’s family as His people, and then made safe and secure in the hands of our unfailing, mighty fortress.
Let’s pray:
O GOD OF GRACE,
You have imputed our sin to our substitute,
and have imputed his righteousness
to our souls,
clothing us with a bridegroom’s robe,
decking us with jewels of holiness.
But in our Christian walk we are still in rags;
our best prayers are stained with sin;
our penitential tears are so much impurity;
our confessions of wrong are so many
aggravations of sin;
our receiving the Spirit is tinctured with
selfishness.
We need to repent of our repentance;
We need our tears to be washed;
We have no robe to bring to cover our sins,
no loom to weave our own righteousness;
We are always standing clothed in filthy garments,
and by grace we are always receiving change of
raiment,
for you do always justify the ungodly;
We are always going into the far country,
and always returning home as a prodigal,
always saying, “Father, forgive us,”
and you are always bringing forth
the best robe.
Grant us never to lose sight of
the exceeding sinfulness of sin,
the exceeding righteousness of salvation,
the exceeding glory of Christ,
the exceeding beauty of holiness,
the exceeding wonder of grace.