Mankind without God continues to sink lower and lower. The psalmist here is pointing out something that is rather obvious - and we see it more and more across the USA and around the world. "All have turned away; all alike have become corrupt." v.3
We try to legislate morality. There are laws for businesses to follow to protect consumers. There are thousands of laws to protect us from each other. We try to get legislation to protect the unborn child (which we should continue to do) but in reality, as we have more and more people in this country who say "God does not exist" v.1 we won't be able to write enough laws.
This is a 15th century illustration to go with this Psalm, titled "David and the Fool."
Notice God looking down from the cloud.
"God looks down from heaven on the human race to see if there is one who is wise, one who seeks God." v.2
All the laws in the world can't change a man's heart. Only God can do that. I support efforts to protect children, marriage, consumers, etc. but ultimately I want to be about the business of sharing the good news that God can change a man from the inside out.
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
1 comment:
I had drafted my thoughts about Psalm 53, and then went back to check about something in verse 1 and realized (in looking up a word in the concordance) that Psalm 53 and 14 nearly mirror each other. So I went back to the blog for Psalm 14 to make sure I wasn't repeating any comment I had already made, and saw I never commented on it. In essence, these comments could be a "ditto" for Psalm 14....
A short Psalm, but most every version I looked at had the same word in verse 1 for people who deny the existence of God: Fool. It's amazing how many educated and well respected people are fools in the eyes of God. Jerry and I have talked several times about the fact that people who don't want to acknowledge God usually live within a moral code of what is acceptable is what the majority of society says is okay. Or they go to the extreme of "I don't see anything wrong with [fill in the blank]" or "It's not hurting anyone, what's wrong with [whatever]?" History and even current world events can dispel that line of reasoning. If there is no ultimate authority, a supreme being that sets a plumb line of right and wrong, then there's just anarchy. C.S. Lewis explored this thought so well in his book Mere Christianity. I pray for my friends that live with the error that there is no God, no accountability beyond trying to do the best they can.
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