Psalm Chapter 53

Psalm 53: The Fool's Declaration

This psalm is nearly a twin of Psalm 14, and the repetition is itself instructive — some truths must be said more than once because we are so determined not to hear them. "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." Notice that the fool does not say it with his mouth; he says it in his heart. This is not a philosophical position arrived at through careful reasoning but a wish dressed up as a conclusion. And the result of this inner declaration is not intellectual freedom but moral collapse: "Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity." The psalm insists on a connection our age would prefer to deny — that what we believe about ultimate reality shapes what we become. God looks down from heaven, searching, hoping to find someone who understands, someone who seeks Him. The portrait is of a God not indifferent but intensely interested, scanning the human race the way a father scans a crowded playground for his child. And the psalm ends not in despair but in longing: "Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion!" It is a prayer still waiting for its fullest answer.

00:00 The Fool's Heart
01:00 Oh That Salvation Would Come