Psalm 14--The Fool Says, There Is No God

Psalm 14
English Standard Version

The Fool Says, There Is No God
To the choirmaster. Of David.
14 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
    They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;
    there is none who does good.

2 The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man,
    to see if there are any who understand,
    who seek after God.

3 They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
    there is none who does good,
    not even one.

4 Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers
    who eat up my people as they eat bread
    and do not call upon the LORD?

5 There they are in great terror,
    for God is with the generation of the righteous.
6 You would shame the plans of the poor,
    but the LORD is his refuge.

7 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.

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The wisdom books (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon) have much to say about the wise man and the fool and that how true wisdom comes from God, so the one who believes or lives like there is no God has no wisdom and is a fool (just as if God is the source of light and if compare wisdom to light, those who close their eyes and say that the source of that light does not exist live in darkness, the absence of light, so they would lack wisdom and would be fools).  This is not meant to be "name calling," it is meant to identify the moral depravity of the one who makes such an argument.  As I said, we'll see later that the "fool" is going to in general be godless and the "wise man" will in general be the one who loves God and His Word and desires to know Him and His will.

In fact, that is the next verse--the LORD looks down from heaven to see if any man seeks after Him.  we know from verse 3 and other places in the Bible that the answer is that there are none who seek after God unless God first seeks after them.  Sin has corrupted the perfect relationship that we had with God in The Garden of Eden, and we now desire to be our own gods, make and play by our own rules, and determine our own consequences.  If we could make others play by our rules too then we'd like that even more.

David wonders if it due to a lack of knowledge that they sin.  Do they not know the Law?  Have we failed to teach them God's moral commandments?  Have we failed to teach them the consequences of sin both in the here-and-now and in eternity?  If they know these things, how then could they make such as choice to live in a way where they seemed to "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die" when that death in such rebellion against God would mean eternal judgment and the harshest of punishments for them?  How can they refuse to call on God for salvation?  David seems to posit that only a fool (someone who lacks wisdom) could come to such a conclusion.

They see that God blesses the righteous and that the LORD is the defender of the innocent, yet these godless, God-hating, God-denying men continue to take advantage of the poor as a way to taunt God as if to say, "God, if you really exist, aren't you going to do something to protect the people who say they believe in You?"  They are trying to put God to the test to see if He really will save His people and really will judge His enemies.  We say that only a fool plays with fire, but seriously, what kind of fool would play with hellfire like this?

David cries out for God to send His salvation to the Jewish people (that would be Jesus).  David may be waiting for what's coming in the Second Coming of Christ, but the Father knew that there was a more important salvation that needed to happen first--so that those who were spiritually bankrupt could have the limitless riches of Christ.  Those who lacked wisdom need only ask God for it, and it would be given to them in Christ, and we would lack no spiritual blessing as all of them would be given to us by Christ through the Holy Spirit (see Ephesians 1:3 and following).