I have never been confident enough in my evangelistic approaches to recommend them to others, but they sometimes do make for good stories. In a previous job at a coffee shop, I remember a conversation with a co-worker who expressed being bent out of shape about religion. He made the comment, “What has God even done lately?” My response was, “He’s kept your heart beating.” He retorted, “No, my body has done that.” His bristling was obvious.
He seemed to think that things like bodily functions, which have some explanation at the natural level, exclude God’s providential involvement in the world’s affairs. He so badly wanted the world to have no room for God that he was trying to force God’s providence out of the picture. There are, sadly, plenty of examples where the hearts of perfectly healthy people just stop. So, it is not the case that God is not involved in keeping our bodies running even when the normal processes of our bodies also play a part in the whole story.
Psalm 14 gives us insight into the human psyche as to why so many want to reject God as if he is not the most essential thing needed for the world to continue. Here we learn, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (v. 1). Those who dismiss, ignore, or dimly overlook the truth place God outside the picture and look for things other than God to explain what they see and experience in the world. The lengths to which someone will go to remove God from the picture is a measure of how much they want to distort, damage, or even destroy the true picture in favor of a painting acceptable to them.
The main point we will see as this series works through this psalm is that God reigns and will prove the godless foolish, even when the godly feel like they are struggling. In our experience of the world, the godless often seem to prosper. It can make us wonder, “Have they actually gotten it right?” The contrast between the perceived success of the wicked and the seemingly downtrodden experience of God’s people might cause us to question the truth. Psalm 14 reminds us what foolishness truly is.
Reminder
Previous articles on Psalms 9–14 have considered how this run of psalms forms a related grouping. Although every psalm has something to teach us on its own, we also learn from how groups of psalms are collected together and relate to one another. Therefore, it seems worthwhile to spend some time reflecting on why this smaller group of psalms would culminate in Psalm 14.
This collection has a pattern to it. As was the case with Psalms 3–8, Psalms 9–14 are a set of five prayers followed by one general reflection upon the human condition. Psalm 8 followed five prayers, ending that stretch on a high note by considering the grandeur of God in relation to how blessed it is that he knows us as his people. At the end of that group of prayers, we learn to put our attention back on God’s greatness as he displays it in creation.
Psalm 14 also thinks on God’s greatness, but from the perspective of how he will prove the godless to be fools. They may not have realized the foolishness of their ways, but God was always aware. So, after several prayers tracing the up-down-up-down experiences of the Christian life, and sometimes the up-down-down experience, Psalm 14 lifts our eyes back to heavenly realities that hang above our experiences.
Most pointedly, Psalm 14 takes us back to the realities of Psalm 2, where we learned that God has guaranteed victory to his Son, the king, and that he even laughs as nations rage against his royal Son. There, we saw that the blessing of God’s victory comes to all who take refuge in him. So, Psalm 14 brings us back to the sure victory of Psalm 2, reminding us that our experience of the nations raging does not undermine God’s sovereign promises.1
Psalm 14 makes direct points of connection to Psalm 2. Psalm 14 starts, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (v. 1) Psalm 2 provided a guiding idea of the Psalter by asking, “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?” (Ps 2:1) Both observations address the futility of striving against God, the foolishness of living like God is not real.
The relationship to Psalm 2 goes further. In Psalm 14:2, “The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.” This action corresponds to Psalm 2:4–6: “He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, ‘As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.’” The ensuing judgment upon the wicked in Psalm 14:5–6 relates to the Father’s promises to the Son in Psalm 2:8–9: “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” These psalms have real correspondence to one another.
Psalm 2 and Psalm 14 look at the same phenomena from two sides. Psalm 2 provided the heavenly perspective of how God perceives the futility of raging nations. Psalm 14 speaks with the psalmist’s own voice about his recognition that God will come through. He remembers the sure promises of Psalm 2 and so assesses what is happening around him in light of that reality. Whereas Psalm 14 observes what plays out for the wicked on the earthly plane, Psalm 2 describes its grounding in God’s decree on the heavenly plane.
Psalm 14, as the end of this smaller grouping of psalms in Psalm 3–14, brings us back up to the high note. But the point we need to mark in this encouragement is that the high note is not found in reflecting on earthly events but on heavenly guarantees. Psalm 14 is a reminder at the end of other prayers about extended discouragement that God has not forgotten his promises.
Relevance
Psalm 14 teaches us to look back on the history of our own prayers. We can very quickly and easily get stuck on the matters right in front of us. When our lives are—even at least seemingly—consumed by hardship, we can readily think that these trials are all that exist.
Psalm 14 reminds us that fools forget that God is involved. We cannot let our hearts speak with the language of fools. We should remember who God is and what he has promised. The way forward in that effort to remember is to recall previous prayers. How many other times have we cried out to God in distress? Even when those seasons seemed like they would never end, how often has God ultimately proved himself faithful to us?
We see this point in two respects from the placement of Psalm 14 in the Psalter. At the end of Psalms 9–13, David’s culminating cry was, “How long, O Lord?” (Ps 13:1) For five prayers, David had been seeking God for help. As he brought those needs to the Lord, his persistence broke into this culminating reflection on how the foolish are the ones who doubt God. Thus we see how Psalm 14 crowns a distinct grouping of psalms.
Psalm 14 also ends the repeated pattern of reflecting upon God after five prayers. Psalm 8 crowned a series of five prayers that marked the up-and-down experience of the Christian life between praise and despair. In Psalms 3–7, David had already encountered this experience of seeking the Lord in a prolonged way. That experience led him to see God’s goodness and faithfulness as he considered the Lord again in Psalm 8.
Psalm 14, as the end of another run of prayers seeking God’s help, shows the importance of remembering the previous times when we had to seek God in a prolonged way. From the vantage of Psalm 14, at least in its canonical placement, David had the evidence of Psalms 3–8 to prove to him that God comes through as faithful in the end. As Psalm 14 comes before us in the Psalter, it shows us how God does that again.
We too should always look back on previous prayers and seasons of prayers to see how God stayed true to us. We will see him do that again.
Note
- Allen P. Ross, A Commentary on the Psalms, 3 vol. (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic Press, 2011–16), 1:381.
© Harrison Perkins. All Rights Reserved.
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