Psalm 14, verse 1. The fool hath said in his heart,
there is no God. The title of my message is a
question, a very simple two-word question. And that question is,
no God? No God? There are some people
who actually claim to believe that there is no God. And to anyone who would claim
to believe such a thing, I pose these six questions, okay? Who created the earth? We all
woke up today, didn't we? You wake up, you go outside.
Before you go outside, you see the sun coming in through your
window, through the door. You go outside, you walk on the
ground, you drive down the road. Just take a look. We live in
these beautiful mountains. Behold what's around us. Travel,
see the world, and ask yourself this question, where did it come
from? If you think there is no God, just look. Oh, it's obvious,
isn't it, brethren? We're told in Romans 1, I believe
verse 20, these things are clearly seen, it's evident. It's evident,
God made this earth and all the things in it. The second question
is, who created us? Who created man? You know, we
learn in school, and they mention a word, evolution, and try to
tell you, well, pretty much, this sums it up, we made ourselves. Ultimately, we've evolved, we've
gotten better, we've arrived, right? That's what they're trying
to tell us. Oh no, God made us. God told us in Genesis, it says
in the beginning, God, He created the heaven and the earth. He
went on to say, God made man upon the earth. He made man from
the dust of the ground, from nothing. He breathed into his
nostril the breath of life, and man became a living soul. That's
what God says. That's what God says. The third question is, who's
running this thing? This life that we live, who's
in control? All these things that happen,
is there a purpose? Is there a cause? Is there anything,
is eternity real? What is it all about? You say
there is no God. My soul, hmm. not according to
God. God said, I am God, and there
is none else. There is no God beside me. In
Psalm 115, the heathen said, David, where's your God at? He
said, our God's in the heavens, and he's doing whatsoever he's
pleased to do. We read in Romans 8, verse 28,
we know that all things work together for good to them that
love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
And that comforts me so much. Things happen, and you think,
why is this happening? We heard it so well this morning
because God made it happen. He's working all things together. Doesn't that comfort you? When
something happens, you just don't understand why it happened. God's
doing it, and He's doing it for good. He's doing it to accomplish
His eternal purpose. The fourth question to the atheist
would be, why do we die? If there is no God, why don't
we just live forever? Why do we have to leave this
earth? What comes after this? What's
next? What's our end? Is there an end?
What is God saying? God said the soul that sinned
at this shall die. God said the wages of sin is death. God said
he's a just God who will punish all sin. That's why we die. The fifth question is, what about
the Bible? How do you explain this book? I've heard people
say, not many, but I've heard someone say that this is just
a man-made book. Oh, what an insult that is. If God ever reveals to you the
message of this book, you'll know it's not a man-made book.
God said, holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost. He said, all scripture is given by inspiration of God.
God said, this is his book. He said, this is my word. We
have the word of God. You wanna hear God speak? Here
you go. This is how God has chosen to speak to us. The last question
I post is this, who is Jesus Christ? How can you explain him? Even with this Word, I can't
explain Him. He's too glorious. He's no mere man that walked
this earth. You know what? He even made it into our history
books that men created. We know He was here, and according
to God's Word, we know He's God. We know He's God Almighty, God
on His throne. We know He's the Savior of His
people. Oh, these questions can't be
refuted, can they, brethren? What a foolish question. No God? Oh, of course not. Now, that's
just my introduction. I'm not here to preach against
atheism, all right? We know better. As God's people,
we just know better. And I pray God might cause this
to really sink into us, okay? Now look with me at verse one
again. If you notice, where it says there is no God. The words
there is are in italics. And what that means is the translators,
when they were translating the word of God from Hebrew and Greek
to English, they added these words and they're in italics
for good reason. Most of the time they're very
helpful, but sometimes they actually serve as a hindrance. And in
this text, I believe that is one of those times. Let's read
it without those italics. The fool has said in his heart,
no God. Here we'll find the true meaning
of this verse. It has to do with submitting
to authority. No God. That's what the fool
has said in his heart, no God. Now, while some say that with
their mouth, and some will say with their mouth there is no
God, Here's what I want us to understand. We all say this in
our heart. No, God, I will not have this
man, the God-man, Jesus Christ, to reign over me. My pastor back in Danville, Don
Fortin, he always said, talking about these kind of things, he
said, we lived our life in utter rebellion against God with our
fist shoved in his face. No, God. And he's right. The scriptures make this so clear.
You see, atheism isn't the issue. That's not the issue. The issue
is total depravity. We must see ourselves in this.
We must see ourselves to be the fool. The scriptures say the carnal
mind, the carnal mind, this mind that we're born with, this mind
that controls the way we think, the things we do, it's enmity,
hatred against God. And I'll just share this with
you. What led me to this text, about a month ago or so, I saw
a video of people burning some things in the street. Here's
what they were burning. The American flag, and that's terrible. We
ought not do that. But what's infinitely worse than
that is the other thing they were burning. The Holy Bible. God's word. And when I saw that,
the first thing I thought was, no God, no thanks, no God for
me. And then as I started reading
this text, it occurred to me, I was looking at that verse,
I was thinking of this verse in a self-righteous way that
was looking down on others who made a very poor choice. You
see, thinking about this matter of there is no God or no God,
it just, that very thought just manifests our fallen nature,
doesn't it? Whether you burn a Bible or not,
and please don't, that's, we deserve, I believe we deserve
to be struck dead for such a thing. But we deserve to be struck dead
every day, don't we? Sinning against God Almighty. You see,
with this matter of atheism, I thought of this as well. It just exposes us for what we
are. And it exposes the religion of
this world. Now hear me out. Someone who
claims that there is no God, here's ultimately what they're
saying. And this is the same thing false religion says. There's
none greater than me. They deny a superior being, is
what they say. There's none greater than me.
And in saying that, here's what we're saying. I am my own God. Is that not how we all are by
nature? We think we are our own God.
We don't want there to be one greater than us. And in religion,
here's the message that we're told. Well, God's done His part. Now, let me tell you what you
need to do. And let me tell you what you need to not do. And
then in the end, it'll be well with you, right? That's the popular
message. That's the message of so-called
Christianity. It's God plus me, grace plus
works, be it however subtle they make it. There can be no mixture. It's one or the other. And if
we're approaching God in that day, trusting in ourself one
bit, What we're doing is we're bringing God down to our level,
and we're bringing ourselves to His level. God alone is God. He's our creator. He made us.
He's the sovereign. We're His creation. We're just
sinful men, sinful women. We're all the fool, okay? We're all the fool. The reason
we read this text and think of atheists, there is no God, is
because we don't believe ourselves to be what God declares us to
be. Totally depraved, lost, and undone. Without God, without
Christ in this world. Look with me again here in verse
one. He said, the fool has said in his heart, no God. They are corrupt. Now again,
this is you and this is me. First thing we see here, we're
a fool and we're corrupt. Now that word means ruined. The first thing we learn in this
book, one of the first things we read about in this book is
what happened in the garden. What happened in the garden?
Right after God created man in his image, perfect, upright,
what happened? What did man do? He ruined himself. ruined himself. How did that
happen? God said, don't do this. In the
day that you eat of this fruit, you shall die. Man eats the fruit. According to God's word, man
died spiritually, separated himself from God. You think about that. One act. When people think that
my good can outweigh my bad and then I'll be saved. It just took
one act of disobedience, and call it a simple act if you will,
ate a piece of fruit. One act of disobedience was enough
to plunge the whole human race into hell forever. One sinful,
just one, one sinful act. And notice here, it says they
are corrupt. They are corrupt. What we do
can't change what we are. You know, people talk about there
being good in all of us. There's not good in any of us.
We're gonna see that in just a moment. I can't make up for
the wrong, say I wrong you. I probably have wronged most
of you, and I'm sorry. And I hope that when I do wrong
you, I will try to make it up to you. That's not how God works. One sin, we're guilty of all,
and one sin, God must punish us. He's a just God, He's a righteous
God. We are corrupt, and the verse
goes on to say, they have done abominable works. The word abominable
means loathsome, to abhor, shameful. We are corrupt, and we've done,
all that we've done is loathsome, shameful works. We read in Matthew
7 where some men, religious men, will approach the Lord in the
day of judgment claiming their wonderful works. Wonderful in
their eyes, wonderful in the eyes of men and women, wonderful
in the eyes of many. Highly esteemed in the eyes of
men, okay? God said abomination in his,
he's called them workers of iniquity. And they said, we've done these
works in thy name. You see what I'm talking about
here? Atheism is no different than our natural religion, the
religion of this world. We've sinned against God. And there's nothing we can do
to make up for it. We can't atone for our sin. And brethren, that's
a bad place to be. When we realize what we've got
coming to us rightly, It's a bad place to be. Look at verse one
again. They are corrupt. They have done
abominable works. There is none that do it good. I pray that'll sink in to all of
us. None. None. None. This captures all of us, don't
it? There is none. None that do it good. Verse two,
he went on to say, the Lord looked down from heaven upon the children
of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek
God. They are all gone aside. They are all together become
filthy. There is none that doeth good. No, not one. How many times do we have to
read it? None good, no, not one. This is repeated in Psalm 53
and repeated again in Romans chapter three. None good, none
righteous. No, not one. This is the reality
we must come to. Even as a believer, how often
do we start to feel a little high and mighty? That's why I believe this message
is for all of us. We need to be reminded what we are, where
we are, what we need. Paul, he, Paul was a high and
lofty man indeed, was he not? He tells us, he said, if any
man had whereof he might have confidence in the flesh, I'm
o'er. He boasted as much as anybody ever boasted before. And then
what happened to him? When God saved him, what did
Paul say about himself? He said, a wretched man that
I am. Wretched man. He said, I'm the
chief of sinners. He said, I'm nothing. That's where we must be brought,
to know our nothingness before God. He said, they that are in
the flesh cannot please God. He said, in me, in my flesh dwelleth
no good thing, not one good thing. And I promise we're gonna get
to some good news here in a few minutes. But I just pray God
will truly show us what we are. We need to know, we need to know. We just read where God looked
down from heaven to see. Now first, God knows all things.
He knows all things everywhere at all times. But when he looked
down to see, I couldn't help but think of Noah. It said, and
God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and
every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continued.
That's what God saw then, and that's what God sees now. You
know that? Nothing's changed. I mentioned evolution. If anything,
the opposite is true. We get worse. We sin worse than
we did before. Is it so with you? Growth in grace is a downward
growth. We grow down. God looked and
what did he see? Anybody seeking God? Was Noah
seeking God? We're not told Noah was seeking
God, but we read that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
That's the only hope, brethren. No one seeks God. You hear someone
say, oh, well, I'm seeking God. No, you're not. Don't deceive
yourself. We seek ourself. Cody seeks Cody. I'm just being honest with you.
We don't seek God, not until He first seeks us. He does the
seeking, all the seeking. And when He finds us, when He
said, seek me, we seek Him. People think they understand.
God looked to see, does anybody understand? Anybody understand
what this book says? You think of Philip and that
Ethiopian eunuch, did he understand? He said, how can I? And we say
the same thing, how can we? Except in God, sin demands show
us. That's what he's been pleased
to do. Praise the Lord. Totally depraved. Look with me
at verse four. Have all the workers of iniquity
no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not
upon the Lord? Being depraved, We have no knowledge. I mentioned Paul. He had tons
of religious knowledge. He was raised a Pharisee. He
had the knowledge. I'm sure he knew the scriptures
very well. But Paul, he had one problem. His knowledge, he didn't
have the knowledge of God. He didn't know Christ. And what
he did, what this verse is telling us is, they have no knowledge.
These workers of iniquity, these people lost in religion, doing
what they think are wonderful works, when what they're doing
is they're eating up God's people like they eat bread. I guarantee
you, Paul, before God saved him, thought he was doing God's work.
I guarantee it. And then when God saved him,
the Lord Jesus said to him, he said, why persecutest thou me? He was persecuting God's people,
but in doing so, he was persecuting God. eat up my people as they eat
bread. The end of that verse says they call not upon the Lord. We read in Romans 10, whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Here's what
it is to be lost. Here's what it is to be totally
depraved. It's so much to think you're saved, think we're doing
God's work, when in reality, we're persecuting God himself
and we have no idea. Oh, what a sad, sad place to
be. No desire for God, no God, no
thanks, no thanks. Verse five says, there were they
in great fear, for God is in the generation of the righteous.
My margin there says, they feared a fear. They feared, that's a
pretty good description of you and me, ain't it? They feared
a fear. Oh, with everything going on right now in our country and
in the world, oh my, we fear a fear, don't we? Here's what
Psalm 53 said about our brother Reddit, where no fear was. Be still and know that I'm God.
That's a good exhortation, isn't it? We fear everything under
the sun except he who made the sun. We need to fear God. We
need to fear him who, our soul and our body is in his hands.
And I promise right now I'm preaching to me more than anything. Fear
the Lord. That's the beginning of wisdom.
Don't fear all these things down here. There's nothing to fear
here. God's in control. Fear Him. Reverence
Him. He's the one we've sinned against.
Fear Him. He's the one we're gonna stand
before. God's in the generation of the righteous. God is righteous. He's the righteous judge. He's
gonna judge us. We better fear him. May God cause
us to fear him. Holy, just, righteous God, fear
him. Verse six. You have shamed the
counsel of the poor because the Lord is his refuge. As we are by nature self-righteous,
however religious we may be, self-righteous, we look down upon others. It's
just, that's our nature. You walk out these doors, you
see somebody in a lesser, less fortunate state, shall I say,
walk by and don't, we just think self-righteous. I hope I'm not
the only one. Why do we do that? Why are we the way that we are?
Why do we think so highly of ourselves? You've shamed the counsel of
the poor. Why do we look down on the poor? Pride, self-righteousness. I thought of that Pharisee in
the temple. Man, he looked down on that publican. He said, thank
God I'm not like that publican. Let me, I this, I that, me, me,
me. That was his religion. That was
his hope. That was his claim on God. Me
and God. God won't have it. The rich young
ruler, he said, what lack I yet? What lack I yet? His problem was he was too rich. By nature, we're too rich. We
come to offer God too much. God's well-pleased with one thing,
and that's Christ, not Christ plus my faith. Not Christ plus
my decision, my determination, my baptism, my anything. Christ
alone. Christ alone. Our Lord said,
blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven. You see, we just read it. The poor have a refuge. See,
the rich, they don't need a refuge because their refuge is themself. By nature, our refuge is ourself. Oh, may God cause us to hear
The poor have a refuge. Do you need a refuge? All I've tried to do so far is
tell you what we are, what we've done against God. Do you need
a refuge? I sure do. A refuge is a hiding
place, security. I need somewhere to go. I need
somewhere where I can be safe when I stand before God in the
presence of God. The message is a question, no
God? Do you need God? He's our refuge. Do you need
him? Look at verse seven. Oh, that the salvation of Israel
were come out of Zion. When the Lord bringeth back the
captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice and Israel Shall
be glad. I told you the good news was
coming. Are you guilty of sinning against God? Salvation is coming. There's salvation. Praise the
Lord. Turn with me to Romans chapter
11. Romans 11 verse 25. For I would not, brethren, that
you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise
in your own conceits, that blindness in part is happened to Israel,
or hardness, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And
so all Israel shall be saved. As it is written, there shall
come out of Zion the deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness
from Jacob, For this is my covenant unto them when I shall take away
their sins. Is that good news to you? Salvation
has come. Salvation has come. God made
a covenant with himself. Again, we heard of that this
morning, the covenant of grace. I will be their God and they
shall be my people. Praise the Lord. The Lord Jesus
Christ, He is our salvation. He is our deliverer, and He has
come out of Zion to save us, to deliver us. Do you need saved? Do you need to be delivered?
That's why Christ came. I mentioned, who is Jesus Christ?
He's the Savior. I pray He's my Savior. I pray
He's your Savior. If He's not your Savior, He'll
be your judge. I pray He's our Savior. And I love the last thing we
read there, verse 27. I shall take away their sins. Oh, praise the Lord. I need my
sins to be taken away to you. Hmm. Not only that, I mentioned
we are corrupt. We are sin. I don't just need
my sins to be taken away. I need to be made righteous. And that's what we read in 2
Corinthians 5, 21. He hath made us to be the righteousness
of God in him. How? He took our place. He was
made to be what we are, sin. He who knew no sin. And now he's
gonna present us spotless, holy, without blemish, before the Father. Praise the Lord. As a result
of what Christ has done, all Israel, verse 26, all Jacobs,
that's who Israel is, Jacob, God saved Jacob, and he said,
your name's not gonna be Jacob anymore, you worm. He said, your
name's gonna be Israel, for as a prince, thou hast power with
God. All Jacobs, all sinners in need
of a Savior shall be saved. Don't worry about, well, am I
elect? Am I Israel? Are you a sinner? That's who
Jacob was. That's who Israel is. Sinners,
do you need a Savior? Here's who shall be saved. Those
who cried, no God, in utter hatred and rebellion against him. That's who shall be saved. Verse seven again, back in our
text. Oh, that the salvation of Israel
were come out of Zion. When the Lord bringeth back the
captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall
be glad. In conclusion, here's my exhortation
to us. Rejoice and be glad. How could we not? After what
God has been pleased to do for us in spite of us, for Christ's
sake, how could we do anything but rejoice and be glad in our
Lord? My soul. He brought back our
captivity. I love where it says he led captivity
captive. I couldn't do it. We're in bondage
to sin, but praise God, Christ has made us free, not in bondage
to sin anymore. Sin no more has dominion over
us. We belong to Christ. We've been bought with a price,
the precious blood of Christ. He paid our price. I love this,
Zephaniah 3, 14 and 15. It says, Sing, O daughter of
Zion. Shout, O Israel. Be glad and
rejoice with all the heart. O daughter of Jerusalem, the
Lord hath taken away thy judgments. He hath cast out thine enemy.
The King of Israel, even the Lord, is in the midst of thee.
Thou shalt not see evil anymore. It's like when the children of
Israel, when God was gonna cause them to cross through that Red
Sea and crush their enemies. Picture of Christ removing our
sin as far as the east is from the west. It said they saw, the
Egyptians whom you've seen today, we see our sin today, don't we?
He said, you shall see them again no more forever. Oh, what good
news. The fool has said in his heart,
no God. But praise God, salvation has
come out of Zion. God would not take no for an
answer. And I'm so glad. I'm so glad. That's my hope of salvation.
God did it all. Christ is all. His people shall
be saved. And his people shall be willing
in the day of his power. Amen.