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No God ...

Tuesday, Mar 18, 2014. We live in a modern world. We have gone through a period of fascinating discovery. Science has given us insight into huge structures, into the universe with its gravitational forces, with electromagnetic waves and fields. The globe is our home. On the other side, we have gained insight into microscopic processes, into the chemistry of our body, into atoms and molecules and smallest animals of micro size. In our world view, there is no God.

Fools …

It might be, that we are just a little stupid in our modern world view, with all our knowledge about science. We are like a human with one leg only - we have one strong leg, but the other is not developed. We forgot a good part of our existence, even the most important part. We have forgotten God. We have forgotten the Lord. In Psalm 14, we are called to reason:

1 To the choirmaster. Of David. The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good. 2 The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand,1 who seek after God. 3 They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one. 4 Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread and do not call upon the Lord? 5 There they are in great terror, for God is with the generation of the righteous. 6 You would shame the plans of the poor, but the Lord is his refuge. 7 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion! When the Lord restores the fortunes of his people, let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad. (Psalm 14)

A different path …

There is a lot of insight in this Psalm. It is a prophetic song. It talks about our reality. It sees more than just the science world. It sees the Lord and his presence.

The psalm also communicates insight into the ethical behaviour of people. It plainly states that we are not doing well. “They are corrupt”. That is a strong statement, yet if you look into this world, into your own life, you will probably find elements to which this applies 100%. “They have all turned aside”. That is also true. Even many of those who believe in the Lord have parts of their life where they just turned aside. The psalm talks on two layers. One layer is the history and story of Israel, the people of the Lord, called “my people” here. The second layer is quite generic, it applies to all of us until today.

The psalm ends with a prophetic outline of the future: When the Lord restores the fortunhes of his people. You might consider it rather general, and it is. But looking back, and in the light of the many other prophetic texts in Isaiah, Jeremia and Ezekiel, salvation is indicated and foretold here already, a salvation which culminates in Christ Jesus and in the New Testament. The psalm takes the turn from evil to salvation, from corruptness to joy and gladness. In faith, insight into failure, brought to the Lord, will always be turned into joy! (Roland Potthast) ... more texts