Hello, you're listening to Let the Bible Speak. Let the Bible Speak is the radio ministry of the Free Presbyterian Church. Stephen Pollack is the pastor of Free Presbyterian Church of Malvern, Pennsylvania. The church is located at the junction of 401 and Mallon Road. Thank you for joining us today as Dr. Pollack opens the Word of God and lets the Bible speak. Thank you for joining us again for another episode of Let the Bible Speak. Today we're recommencing our series of studies on the book of Psalms, looking at the first book of the Psalm, and today we're going to study the Psalm 14. But as this year comes to a close, I really want to make an appeal to you, our listeners. It's not an appeal for money, it rather is an appeal for your time. that you would take time as this year comes to a close to consider where you stand with the Lord. We're looking at the writings and the songs of the psalmist, a man who experientially knew God and walked with God, a believer in the goodness of God, a believer in the promises of God. And so many of his experiences are unique to the child of God. The blessings he enjoyed are not enjoyed by those who remain outside of Christ. And so I want to ask you, appeal to your hearts today. Where do you stand with the Lord? Really, in simple terms, are you saved? Have you been saved by grace through faith in Christ alone? Have you turned away from your sins? Confessed that you're a rebel against God and you have no hope of eternity? You are without God and without hope in this world? Well, the solution is found in Jesus Christ. He came into the world to save sinners. And as this year comes to a close, we often reflect upon the incarnation of Jesus Christ. He is the one who came to save his people from their sins. He is willing to save souls. And if you would turn from your sins, confess your guilt, and then turn to the Saviour, He alone paid the price for sin on the cross. He alone lived a perfect life. And He alone can save you from your sins. Take Him today. May God bless this message to your souls. Let's take our Bibles together and turn tonight to the 14th Psalm. Psalm 14. It's another psalm of David, entitled here again, The Chief Musician. The idea being this is something that could be sung and used and praised by the congregation. a hymn indeed of praise, and yet dealing with the nature of sin, but of course ending in that triumphant note of prayer for God's salvation to come. So let's read together. The psalm, the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. They are corrupt. They have done abominable works. There is none that doeth good. The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek God. They had all gone aside. They had all together become filthy. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? Heed up my people as they eat bread and call not upon the Lord. There were they in great fear, for God is in the generation of the righteous. Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor, because the Lord is his refuge. 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. Amen. May God indeed bless his word to your hearts tonight, and for his name's sake. Well, this being a season of prayer for this congregation, I thought we really should focus upon the language of verse number seven as we look at this psalm together. When I say focus on it, certainly look at the psalm in the context of how it ends in this really encouraging prayer for God's mercy. Oh, that salvation or the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion. Again, it's this desire for God's mercy to be poured out upon others. Sin, again, that element that brings us captive, captive to our own sin, and yet God being pleased to turn around that captivity, bringing joy and gladness. You can readily see how that prayer could form our studies and indeed our petitions tonight as we gather together in the house of God. We could pray that all night. Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion. But when you look at this, Sam, you've got to realize that is the closing element of this particular prayer and this particular word of praise. And so let's begin by getting to that, yes, verse 7, but begin by considering the cause. First of all tonight, the cause of this prayer. And of course, it is an understanding of widespread depravity. The psalm is detailing the widespread nature of sin. Again, it moves the godly to prayer. A recognition of sin in a community, a recognition of sin in an individual, will always move the godly to fall upon their knees and to call out to God for salvation. And that's the setting here. Sin brings about a prayer for salvation. Now Paul, of course, uses this, Sam, in detailing universal sin in Romans chapter 3. The point of Romans 3, of course, is to prove that both Jew and Gentile are under sin. And so whilst here it's not specified who's involved, it certainly does include Israel. And you get the language in verse 7, the captivity of his people. But it's not exclusively to Israel. It is more general in terms of the sin among the children of men, verse number 2. no one mentioned here." Again, you get the language of verse number 3, they're all gone aside. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. How are we to understand that statement or those statements? It is clear, even in the context of the Psalm, that there are godly ones. So it says, God looked down from heaven, and there's none that doeth good, no, not one. The psalm itself details those who have the Lord as their refuge. This is not suggesting that there is no one righteous in view, but rather it is explaining the fact that all the children of men, by nature, have inherited sin. Again, you've got it there, verse number 2. The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men. By nature and by practice, all are infected with sin. Of course, there are the children of God who have been redeemed and delivered out of this. But once they were also part of this company of the children of men. And so he's really describing the state of affairs of all those outside the kingdom. that within the remit of the entire world, you're either in Christ and redeemed by Christ, or you find yourself in the company of the children of men who've all been infected with the inheritance of sin. And so when you think of this widespread depravity, he highlights the matter of ignorance. Verse number two, the Lord looked down from heaven to see if there were any that did understand. Now, verse number... For also have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge." And of course, it is that lack of knowledge that provokes the statement in verse number one, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. Now, the folly in view here, again, of course, is not intellectual folly. It's spiritual folly. It is the fool as compared to the wise man in the poetic scriptures. I'm not going to take you through Proverbs, but you'll see there the wise man is a righteous man, a redeemed man. The fool is one who does not know God. And so the knowledge here, again, it's not intellectual deficiency. Again, there are many very clever fools. It is a spiritual deficiency. And you have this poetic picture of God coming down from heaven, looking down from heaven to see if there are any who would understand. It's a bit like what happens in the garden. God comes to the garden of our first parents and says to Adam, where art thou? God's coming to search out his creation, searching out to see if there are any he understand. And so the key issue here in terms of depravity is the issue of spiritual ignorance. The ungodly understand nothing properly. Now, in common grace, they can discern and examine creation, and they can make right conclusions, but ultimately, without a thought of God, they have no true understanding. And so they profess atheism. The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. Now, I say, professed atheism. Romans 1 makes it clear that all men have a knowledge of God. And that knowledge of God is what they suppress or they hold down in their unrighteousness. What they know, they suppress. And so, the fool says, in his heart, there is no God. The heart that is marked by wickedness and depravity, that very heart says, there is no God. because they suppress that knowledge in their own ignorance. They lack the understanding, therefore, that leads to faith and godliness. They know something, but in unrighteousness they deny that knowledge and they profess God to be a liar and themselves to be the possessor of all truth. They have their understanding darkened. They're alienated from the life of God through the ignorance in them because of the blindness of their heart, as Paul says in Ephesians chapter 4. So ignorance comes to the fore. You'll understand very well if you point that out to people, they generally get very irritated. They are the ignorant and irritated at the same time when you point out the fact they know something and yet they choose to deny it. The Bible well calls them the fool. But the ignorance is always accompanied with iniquity. They are corrupt. That's what it says, verse number one. They are corrupt and they have done abominable works. There is none that doeth good. Out of their depravity they do corrupt things. Again, we often point out that people are not sinners because they sin, but rather they sin because they are sinners. Out of their depravity then comes all manner of sinful thoughts, words, and actions. Again, I wanna pause here and remind you that the consideration of the depravity of man moves the godly man to compassion, to concern, and to prayer. And so often we struggle with that. We see the corruption of mankind, and we respond, and we argue we're responding with righteous anger, but sometimes that righteous anger does not come with the accompaniment of compassion and concern leading to godly prayer. But this iniquity is marked by deeds both of commission and omission. Again, the language used here, they have done. These are acts of commission, abominable works. Again, the word filthy is used there in verse number three. They are defiled, a defilement that comes through sin. Again, you look at the Old Testament scriptures. Defilement comes through the presence of sin. When Paul refers to this text again in the Greek and then in the English, they are all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. Iniquity is vanity. Iniquity is worthless. Iniquity doesn't help anybody. That's the idea here. There's uselessness marking their deeds. Their iniquity serves no good purpose. Have you ever thought of sin in that regard? Not only is it harmful, it serves no benefit to anybody. Little need for us to imagine the vice in view here. The abominable works, there's nothing new under the sun. And we can readily see how quickly depravity will reveal itself in a society. Of course, I'm going to mention this now. The iniquity of the ungodly is not just personal, yet there are some sins that work privately. But the heart of the ungodly works out sinfully, ultimately in its full expression against the Lord's people. Verses 4 through 6 highlight this. they eat up my people as they eat bread, they shame the counsel of the poor." And you're seeing this acts of commission, they come out in acts of wickedness against the Lord's people, mockery, and indeed, oppression. But the psalm also significantly highlights sins of omission. Remember that we are not only responsible not to break God's law, we're also responsible to do God's law, to keep God's law, to do the positive aspects of the law of God. And it is sin to fail to obey any of God's commands. Sins of omission. And so it says here, there are any that understand verse 2 and seek God. They don't seek God. Verse 4, they call not upon the Lord. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. So what are their sins of omission? They don't seek God, they don't call upon God, and they don't do good. This is the manifestation of the iniquity of man. Not only do they do evil, they also fail to do those things that are upright. Again, it's important to note the presence of remaining sin in our own lives. Can you not see yourself sometimes in that description? At times in your life you live as a practical atheist. You don't seek God. You don't call upon God. You don't do good. I think we can all see that at times. The remaining sin that lives within us leads to us at times being guilty of sins of omission, not just sins of commission. And so the cause of this prayer is a reflection again upon man's depravity, total depravity, affecting all of mankind and every part of mankind. And a reminder of this, we're here to pray tonight in response to the iniquity of people around us. That's what drives us in prayer, where we're here to call upon God to bring salvation to those who are so undeserving of that, as we were. And yet we see them in their misery, we see them in their uselessness, and in their abominable works, and we have our souls moved to call upon God. And the only place we can go in light of such iniquity is to the throne of God's. Oh, that's salvation. would come out of Zion. It's the burden of our hearts in light, again, of this iniquity. But you also see, secondly, that the context of the prayer, again, not so much a general idea here, but the immediate context, that the general thought of depravity leads into a particular display, as we've seen already in verses 4 through 6. We're not told the exact occasion of the psalm, but this, if you like, this experience of declension, the season of declension that David's encountering is manifested particularly in the mistreatment of the godly. And there are times in David's life that that will be the case. Think of the rebellion of Absalom. There's widespread ungodliness and the burden that comes. I'm not told that's the case here, but something like that is certainly very possible. There's widespread declension, and those who are godly are mistreated. Let me say again, mind you, the language of depravity here is not saying there is no godly people. There are clearly those described here as poor, and they call the Lord their refuge. until the ungodly, in such a situation, they oppress them, they eat them up like bread, and they mock them, they laugh, and they make a shame of the counsel of the poor. These people take refuge in God, but it's mocked. But the insight, I think, that leads directly to the prayer is itself really fascinating. I wrestle with it. Look at verse number five. Look what it says. There were they in great fear. He highlights an aspect of man's depravity, which is living in a state of fear. Now, if you turn across to Psalm 53, you'll see the opening verse of Psalm 53, in fact, the entire Psalm, is almost an exact replica of Psalm 14, with a few differences. But one of the differences in verse number five, there were they in great fear, where no fear was. It's showing the ungodly as manifesting their depravity and their iniquity in the presence of fear where there is no need for fear. Or as Proverbs 28 says, the wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are bold as a lion. This presence of fear. You see, it's really interesting. The ungodly deny God. They disobey God. They defy God. But as they will not depend upon God, so they live their lives susceptible to fear. And they mock the counsel of the poor. What's a poor man say to them? Put your trust in God. Make the Lord your refuge. That's their counsel. You see, God is with his people, verse number five. God is in the generation of the righteous. And so the poor therefore say, God is with us. Put your trust in God. But the ungodly reject that, and thus they live in fear. What a truth there is. God is amongst us. God is our refuge. Therefore, we will not fear. We have the assurance that we need not fear. But the ungodly, defying God, disobeying God, and not depending upon God, they live susceptible to fear. And this is what we see in reality. Don't we live in a time when people are marked by fear? They fear all manner of viruses. all manner of rumors of war, financial chaos, the ungodly live in fear. An election result goes the way that some don't like, and suddenly, what's going to happen to our nation? And they're living in fear, marked by a fear of the unknown, because they do not have a refuge in God, who is in control of all things. They have no refuge in God, who is ministering for the sake of his people, working all things together for good. We shouldn't fear as a people of God. We should not be like the ungodly. But we should understand that when we see the ungodly fear, we're seeing an insight into their profiting. We're seeing what it looks like if you don't depend upon God. You live in fear. And when we see that or read about that or hear that in the public square, we need to get on our knees and call upon God. It's a symptom of depravity. When they live in fear, they are screaming out to us, I'm a sinner out of Christ. I have no hope and no refuge. And we see that and we get on our knees and we pray for them. That's what I think the cause of this prayer is. The general sense of depravity and in the particular setting that they live in fear when they ought not to live in fear. Of course, there is a right and proper fear of God. That's not what's on view here. This is a fear where there is no fear. Well, let's thirdly and finally consider briefly the confidence of this prayer. Again, we looked at this idea that this widespread depravity and the context of the fear of the ungodly, it drives to prayer, but the prayer is marked by confidence. It is not a prayer, understand this, it's not a prayer that God would save. It's an understanding that God has saved. Oh, that the salvation of Israel will come out of Zion. The salvation is there already in that sense. What I see in this is that God has already made provision for salvation. And the prayer is that what is provided will be accepted, that what is available would be appropriated. The salvation of God will be poured out upon the people, turning their captivity and bringing gladness in the context of the redeemed. He's praying that God's mercy would be poured out in that sense. The place is Zion, the place of the temple, or at least at this time, the place of sacrifice. The ark in David's ministry was brought back to Jerusalem. The ark is there, the place of atonement, where blood is placed upon the mercy seat and sinners can know forgiveness of sins. It's there in Zion. It's the place of the covenant, the place of blood sacrifice. It's the place where God is. That's the idea. It's Zion in that redemptive sense. And God has put his love there, and then it's poured out from there. And so the process, the place of Zion, the process is out of Zion comes blessing to others. It's used geographically as the center of God's mercy. And so the redeemed are to go up to Zion. They're to look to Zion. They're to look to the sacrifice. Their eyes are to go there because out of Zion comes salvation. And it comes to the people, the place Zion, the process. Out of Zion comes blessing, the people, to Israel. It is to the Jew first, and then also the Gentile. And so when Paul takes this in Romans chapter 3, he shows that all are under sin, but he also shows that the power of God is the gospel to all mankind, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. And so the psalm, it becomes fuller in its development when you get to the new covenant, not just to Israel, but to all mankind in captivity, that the Gentiles can be brought into the covenant of redemption also. It's a confident prayer. And of course, we look back, not forward, but back to Calvary. We have all the more reason to pray this prayer with confidence, because Christ has come in the fullness of time, and he's taken the curse of the law upon himself, that we who are in captivity to sin might go free, that we can set free from the kingdom of darkness and brought into the kingdom of God's dear Son. That's our hope and expectation. We can pray this prayer. Oh, that the salvation of the world would come out of heaven, as the Son of God has died for sin, ascended to the right hand of God, to the heavenly Zion, and out of heavenly Zion would God now send salvation upon the world. We can pray that tonight. In light of widespread depravity, in light of the fear of the ungodly, we can take this prayer with confidence. God has indeed secured salvation through Christ Jesus. And so we pray out of this burden. We pray with a burden upon our souls. And by God's grace, when such prayers are answered, we shall rejoice and be glad. The psalm ends in that way. When the Lord bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice and Israel shall be glad. It's God's kindness. We have a burden for souls. God answers our prayers, and we're glad. We share in the joy of the Lord. He sees a child in His soul and is satisfied, and we share in that joy, the joy in the presence of the angels when one sinner repents. That's our expectation, and that's our confidence. We have no difficulty seeing our own day and generation through the lens of Psalm 14. We look here, we look there, and we say, well, here's Psalm 14 again. But may it drive us to our knees, not to despair, but to dependence upon God, that we'd call upon God with all of our hearts. that we'd really find our souls stirred up in this prayer meeting tonight. We have a God who saves, and a God who wants to pray, and we can go to this God. In all of our difficulties and distractions and doubts and difficulties, we have a God in heaven who hears our prayers, and who is pleased to save souls. May God enable us to pray tonight for the honour and glory of his great name. Amen. This is the word of the Lord and may it indeed be a blessing and benefit to all of our hearts. Thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode of Let the Bible Speak from Malvern Free Presbyterian Church. If you'd like more information about the gospel or the church, please call 610-993-3170 or email malvernfpc at yahoo.com. We extend an invitation to all to join us as we worship the Lord each week. You will be made very welcome. The church is situated at 80 Mallon Road, Malvern, Pennsylvania, at the junction of 401 and Mallon Road. We meet for worship on the Lord's Day at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. A Bible study and prayer meeting is also held on Wednesday evening at 7 p.m. We preach Christ Crucified.