THE QUESTIONS OF A THINKING MAN

Psalm 14:1

The fool has said in his heart,
“There is no God.”
They are corrupt,
They have done abominable works,
There is none who does good.

First matters first.

1.       Who speaks?  The fool: Nabal is the Hebrew word used here.  In I Samuel 25:25 Abigail says of her husband, “He is a scoundrel” and “folly” is his practice.  The original King James Version writes “he is a churlish man.”  The identification of the speaker will help us determine the meaning of his claim.

2.      The center of the conversation:

A.     In his heart is to say with thorough conviction.  This is what he believes and what he will practice.

B.     It is not particularly a matter for discussion.  It is internal, not through lack of conviction, but because it is more a matter of conviction than conversation.

3.       What he says!  No God.  No Elohim.  No lawgiver, judge, or supreme ruler.  An evangelist I heard speak years ago, Rolf Barnard, described this as a rejection of God’s control of his life or right to his service.  He understood the Nabal to be saying “No God for me.”  I think the context of this Psalm and the description of the Biblical fool lends itself to this understanding.

The Puritans distinguished between the philosophical atheist, of which there are not many, and the practical atheist, which overwhelms the earth.  This man is the practical atheist, “No God for me.”

But what is the importance of God to man?  The answer is one of eternal significance no matter what the intellectual convictions.  There is an eternity to face.  If there is nothing, then that is an answer that must be found.

The great question posed to man, “Is there a God?”  This poses the problem of the origin of our environment and man in that space.  I watched again today, June 2, 2016, the Nova film on the Hubble Telescope.  The woman who is considered to be the “mother” of the Hubble finished the program by saying the hope that the Hubble and science from it would help us to determine “where we came from, what we are, and what we are to do.”  Certainly these are important questions, but I doubt Hubble science will give us the answers.

Again, another of the Hubble scientists said the Hubble teaches that the universe is expanding and that it has a beginning.  We say, “yes” and we know the Beginner.

Man cannot see effect without thinking cause.  Who caused all this--the world around us, and the world above, and certainly the world beyond us?  There are but three choices:

1.      The world is uncaused.

2.      The world caused itself.

3.      God did it.

Please not the question and answer in Psalm 115:2-3.

²Why should the Gentiles say,
“So where is their God?”

³ But our God is in heaven;
He does whatever He pleases.