Image Is Important

Nobody expected this, but perhaps that is precisely why we wrote this into our culture. Everyone was trying to dress down and we revisited the 20’s (the 1920’s that is). Hairstyles went back, just a little shorter on the sides and I want that hard part. Men started wearing suits again, and I have a box full of pocket squares. Let’s be honest, though. I’ll wear a partial so I can look more relaxed. Business casual is the new casual. We grew our beards out and broke out the suspenders. I haven’t been able to find those button suspenders that I want, yet. Guess I will have to order them. We were done with what we perceived to be the mediocre existence of Generation X. Image was important. We wanted others to know what we were. I think that is also why, for the most part, we stopped using coffee machines. Well, that and we wanted a more genuine coffee with a fuller taste profile. Pour-over filters, french presses, and moka pots started selling again. Oh, look. My spellchecker doesn’t even recognize what a moka pot is. That is how old, and new, it is.

As we read through the Psalms, we catch a glimpse of the hearts of people that were responding to God. 73 of the psalms in this book are attributed to King David. David was known as a man after God's own heart and, in many of his psalms, he shared the distress of his heart. In Psalm 14 David cries out to God wondering why nobody else seems to call upon the name of the Lord.

My heart resonates deeply with David's. As I look around, my heart is so burdened. I feel, many times, like I am striving to live life according to God's instruction. It is such a good instruction to follow! Then I see others who have access to the very same instruction from the all-wise God of the universe and choose not to follow it, but follow their own preferences and their own wisdom instead. This is how I feel to the depth of my bones when I consider my own generation, the very people in this place.

In the book sitting on the table (1 Chronicles 21:1), we read that Satan actually stood up against Israel, moving David to take a census. In 2 Samuel 24:1, in the same book, we read about God stirring David’s heart, which led him to take presumably the same census of the people. Someone who already believes that the Bible is truthful will reconcile the two versions of the story and someone who already believes the Bible to be false will claim that there is a contradiction. It may be the case, here, that God has stirred David’s heart, causing David to take a census and Satan took advantage of that opportunity and moved David to respond to God's work in a way that was not honoring to God. If this is the case and if this is the proper way to look at this part of history, then we can notice something very important about the way Satan works to turn the people of God against God.

1. Satan inserts himself during times of transition. David's reign was about to end and he was about to pass his kingship to his son, Solomon. David was trying to prepare the people for the transition and he even began laying the foundation of the Temple that Solomon would be responsible for completing (1 Chronicles 22). Because Satan inserted himself and people allowed him to deal damage, there was division among the people of Israel. Joab opposed David in the first part of 1 Chronicles 21. If we are pursuing what God wants us to do, then the church is always in transition, always growing more mature, always learning to serve and love more people, and love people more. If the church is always growing in a variety of ways, then there is always an opportunity for Satan or Satan's army to insert itself in the life of the church and cause division where division makes no sense. Thus, churches become more concerned about securing their future than about following Jesus. Does this not bear significance when new generations look for their place in the church on this earth? Satan will stir our hearts, create thoughts within us that we will dwell on, and use those to turn brothers and sisters in the faith against one another. This is what has happened with and in my generation. We must be vigilant and be aware that Satan will take every opportunity to insert himself in our society and in our lives, especially during any time of transition.

2. Satan will tempt us to respond to God's providential work on our own terms. This contributed to the conflict between David and Joab. When someone has a different way of doing things than we have or uses different tools than we would use, Satan will draw our attention to those trivial differences. When we focus on those differences, Satan gets exactly what he wants because we stop focussing on Christ and His vision for society and for our lives. We must not focus on differences between methods and tools. We must focus on the mission of God and be aware that Satan will use anything he possibly can to distract us from that mission. I am sorry the church lost sight of her first love and forgot to love people instead of buildings, money, and influence. God is still faithful. In fact, He works even human unfaithfulness together for His glory.

3. Satan's objective most often is not to attack God's people in an obvious way, but to sneak in and turn the people against one another and against God using the vision that God has provided. All of the sudden, we have turned understanding into dogma and moral purity into legalism. Again, I apologize to my own generation and to the church. We built our own kingdoms upon the promises of Christ and we wrote our own legends. We should have listened to Johnny Cash. We wrote the new legends on our walls and shared them in our stories. You see what we want you to see about us, and we don’t acknowledge what we have kept hidden.

It was within the context of David's life, and all of the division that Satan caused in these ways throughout David’s reign, that Psalm 14 was written. Why did the people of God not seem to call on God? This is the question David continually asked through many of his psalms, especially this one.

There is no God,

I hear the thought of the man sitting here with me echo throughout our society. Scientific discovery has made it possible for people to believe that things have come into existence without the need for a creator. We not only write what we want to be seen, but refuse what we don’t want to see. It’s more important for me to be true to myself than to receive and give honestly. So, I have not recognized that if any theory of evolution were true, it would be so miraculous that it would demand the existence of a creator.

It’s not the bourbon talking. I’m sober-minded. When I look at the beauty of the world, I see God. Look, the stones in your glass are crying out. No, it’s not the bourbon talking. Scientific evidence seems to suggest that the universe had a beginning, so we can draw a certain conclusion:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause

1. The universe began to exist

1. Therefore the universe has a cause

This is a simple argument known as the Kalam Cosmological Argument. If we continue to follow this line of thinking to its natural conclusion, there is either an infinite regress of causes or one single uncaused cause of everything. That uncaused cause would be God.

The rocks are crying out again. There are not many people on the face of the planet that would claim there to be no objective morality. Those who claim that there is no objective morality (that there is not one moral standard that applies to all people) would have to claim that it is morally right to treat all subjective morals as right (that’s a shortening of the word ‘righteous’ if you didn’t notice), which is an objective moral claim. If there are objective moral values, there has to be a standard for those values. That standard would need to be God.

1. If God does not exist, objective morals and duties cannot exist

1. Objective morals and duties exist

1. God exists

There are other crying stones (the Ontological is my favorite), but these will suffice for the purpose of insisting our belief that God exists is not only valid, but more likely the case. There is not enough whiskey here to get every rock to the table with us so we can listen.

It is the fool who says that there is no God. If we observe the world today and observe the human condition, our observations cannot lead us to believe that there is no God. In fact, listening to the rocks leads us to the truth of God's existence.

The God from whom and through whom and to whom these rocks exist loves the atheist and desires the atheist to come into a relationship with Him just as much as He wants us and wants to bring us to our dwelling place with Him. When David writes about the fool saying in his heart that there is no God, we have to think about David's context. First of all, He doesn't say that the fool says with his mouth that there is no God. He specifically refers to the heart (the seat of the emotions and of thought). David was the King of Israel. He had many struggles. Satan was moving in the hearts and minds of the people of Israel and David was perturbed by the tendency of God's people to practice such Godlessness. The Hebrew word for fool specifically refers to someone who acts in a morally detestable way. David is writing about his own countrymen and people who outwardly profess to be God's people.

So, when we think about foolishness, we can know that it is foolish to say that there is no God (because God's existence seems obvious to us when we listen to the rocks), and we can know that it is foolish of people who claim to be God's people to live a life with which God is virtually ignored. David wept at this tendency within the nation of Israel and we should weep when God's people today are only His people by proclamation and not by lifestyle. Again, I apologize and apologize and apologize.

We became corrupt…

David poured his heart out saying that God has looked down to find who was wise, and everyone was found to be corrupt and to have turned from God. The Israelites claimed to be God's people, yet in their action they were corrupt. Jesus comes close to quoting this psalm in Matthew 10, when the rich young ruler came to Him and asked “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus responded by asking, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.”

Jesus went on to point out the fact that the rich young ruler claimed to be part of God's people, but he had ignored the poor (which was an action in opposition to God). Foolishness, then, leads people into corruption. Foolishness is proclaiming with our mouths that we are God's people and then still believing that we are actually our own. This belief leads to action. To be corrupt is to confess with our mouths that we are God's people and then to let our belief in self lead us to act in a way that completely dishonors God, whom we confess with our mouths. I’m sorry we’ve done this, and I’m sorry we’ve done this.

This is not difficult for us to understand in the world today. We confess that exercise is good for us, but we believe in our hearts that we would rather sit on the couch and eat cake (I am guilty). This belief leads to the action of sitting on the couch and eating cake. I justify my coffee intake by arguing that it is made with water, so it must benefit me at least as much as water does. Only with God, the consequences are much greater than just being out of shape or getting the jitters (which admittedly I’ve never had). If we are foolish, that foolishness can develop into corruption very easily and this is all too real in the western church.

David referred to those who had become corrupt as workers of wickedness who eat up or devour the people who eat bread. Those who are corrupt and have turned from God because of their foolishness actually drain the energy from those who remain faithful to God. When anyone in the church is concerned only about self instead of the things that God is concerned about, that person usually causes more conflict and causes the church body to fracture and fall. Perhaps he causes one generation to leave or contributed to that exodus. We see this over and over again in the church. Sometimes it happens slowly and sometimes it does not wait. Again I will insist that the people of God must be vigilant in a world where Satan works in the ways that he does, by God’s providence of course.

Righteousness is real…

David didn’t only mention a corrupt people within the nation of Israel. He also mentioned a righteous generation (v. 5). I do not know which generation this might have been because David could have penned this psalm at any point during his reign. He described this righteous generation as afflicted and accused those who are corrupt of constantly making endless arguments against the righteous generation in order to keep them down, by down I mean under the foot of or keeping quiet or from having influence. What was that you said about Millennials? I have no doubt that David probably felt as though he was a part of this righteous generation. Even though there was no end to the complaints of the corrupt, the righteous generation found their refuge in God.

To be righteous, then, is to experience this conviction, burden, and affliction that David describes; seeking to always go through the process of honoring God better with our lives rather than confessing God and trying to stay the same. Those who confess God and then live according to self are corrupt according to David's psalm. They are the ones who will usually make empty accusations and criticisms that are not God honoring and that do not promote the things that God is primarily concerned about. When we are the object of empty accusation and criticism, we can know that our refuge is in God and not in people.

I am not here to convince you…

It is not the responsibility of the righteous to restore the corrupt in David’s psalm. Neither is changing you any responsibility of mine. Let’s continue enjoying our drinks as we talk honestly. This type of change is a responsibility that God reserves for Himself. Only God has the power of deliverance and only God has the power of restoration. This means that instead of lashing out against those who afflict us and those who proclaim with their mouths that they are God's people but live in contrast to Him, we simply pray for them and become content in our affliction. When the Lord restores us, there will be great rejoicing!

Image is important, but not what is written on our walls or in our stories. What we hear coming from the rocks draws our attention to someone different, someone higher, the one in whose image we were created and who yearns jealously after us.

Whiff. Sip. Savor.