Episode Details

Psalm 14: The Fool's Creed

The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Notice that he says it in his heart, not in his head. This is not the conclusion of a careful philosophical argument; it is a wish, dressed up as a conviction. And David tells us what follows from this wish: corruption, abominable works, a universal turning aside until there is none that doeth good — no, not one. It is as if the denial of God does not merely remove a doctrine from the mind but pulls the keystone from an arch, and everything built upon it slowly, inevitably collapses. God, meanwhile, is not absent from the scene. He looks down from heaven — the same searching gaze we met in Psalm 11 — to see if there are any that understand, any that seek Him. The picture is almost unbearably poignant: the Creator scanning His creation for a single face turned upward. And at the close, a cry that comes not from despair but from longing — Oh, that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! It is the ache of a man who knows the rescue is real but has not yet arrived.

00:00 The Fool Hath Said in His Heart
00:12 The Lord Looked Down From Heaven
00:24 All Gone Aside, None That Doeth Good
00:36 Have They No Knowledge?
00:46 God in the Generation of the Righteous
00:54 Oh That Salvation Were Come Out of Zion