What do you treasure in your heart? Do you seek genuine gold? Or is your life a vain pursuit of fool’s gold?
Psalm 14 defines a fool as someone who does not believe in God:
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds,
there is none who does good (verse 1, ESV).
Our enthroned God looks down and sees that all people are sinners.
The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man,
to see if there are any who understand,
who seek after God.
They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good,
not even one (2-3, ESV).
But he views people in two categories, the evildoers and his people (4, ESV):
Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers
who eat up my people as they eat bread
and do not call upon the Lord?
Those who deny God’s existence devour his people. But God does not leave his people alone.
There they are in great terror,
for God is with the generation of the righteous.
You would shame the plans of the poor,
but the Lord is his refuge (5-6, ESV).
God promises never to leave or forsake his people. God is our shield and refuge. David ends Psalm 14 with a cry for deliverance and joyful confidence.
Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
When the Lord restores the fortunes of his people,
let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad (7, ESV).
David knows that God will deliver his people because God exists. He is the great I AM, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Everything in his creation from the delicate butterflies flitting over flowers to the magnificent planets spinning in space proclaim his existence.
Only a fool would say, “There is no God.” Don’t hoard fool’s gold. Treasure the gold of God’s Word.
Glenda Faye Mathes 