The Fool's Foolishness

Really since the beginning of time, the human race has been plagued with questions about life, death, evil, goodness and purpose. I’m convinced that the 2 most important questions every one of us has to ask and ultimately get right or, life is a waste of time:

Is there a God?

If there is a God, has that God spoken and revealed Himself in a way that we can understand and know him?

If the answers are no, then it really doesn’t matter if there is a God!

Now lets say - there is a God, what good is that if I can’t know Him and understand what He communicates to me? This is one of my major arguments with Islam and New Age - to them God is not personal or knowable and this is so defeating and fatalistic!

Today, what I want to do is deal with the fundamental statement of the fool…“There is no God!”

But maybe you’re thinking, Pastor, I’ve never seen this God? I realize this, but this is true with gravity and oxygen and your enjoying both right now! You see, you don’t need to see Him physically to experience Him spiritually!

Do you know what’s amazing about this Psalm? This Psalm begins with people who don’t believe in God. And get this:

- There are 41,173 verses in the Bible and God gives one half of one verse to the atheist!

- There are 774,746 words in the Bible and God gives the atheist 11 words.

There was an atheist who was complaining to his friend that there’s no holiday for the atheist. Christians have Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter. Then his friend said, “Then why don’t you take April 1st!”

I’ve come to realize that there are only 3 things we can do with God, and they’re all found right here in Psalm 14.

Let’s look at them…

1. We Can Deny The Reality of God. Vs. 1a

About 7% of America does just that! They say, “There’s no God, so I’m a fool!” What we just read is the only dialogue God has with the atheist - that’s it! 2 sentences: “There’s no God!” And God says, “Fool”! End of conversation!

This reminds me of a little boy who was talking to his atheist dad at dinner and said, “Dad, do you think God knows that we don’t believe in him?”

Even the most educated genius with the highest I.Q. can be a fool! The person in the natural can know what E=MC square is, but in the spiritual knows nothing about the ABC’s of God!

Think about it - the most brilliant scientist who sees a car - has no problem believing there’s a designer. He sees a portrait and has no problem believing there’s an artist. He reads a book and has no problem believing there’s an author! But when he sees creation, he denies there’s a creator! That’s really amazing to me!

In 1916 Albert Einstein was so disturbed that the universe was not eternal but in fact had a beginning that he wrote about this “Irritating fact”, “Philosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of nature is repugnant to me…I should like to find a genius loophole.”

But in 1949 he wrote, “Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.”

You know, while there really is only about 7% in America who are atheist, the truth of the matter is that there’s more foolish people in America than we admit! More foolish people who claim to be Christians even!

There are 2 types of atheist in America:

- The intellectual - believes there’s no God.

- The practical - behaves like there’s no God.

And the most foolish person in the world today is not the intellectual fool, but rather the practical fool, the one who believes in God but their lifestyle is godless!

The practical atheist says:

There’s a God, but I’m going to live without him.

There is a Bible, but I’m not going to live by it.

There’s a Lord’s Day, but I’m going to sleep it away or go fishing all day!

The most famous atheist of our day was Madelyn Murray O’Hare. Her son William quotes her as saying…“I’m an atheist, not because I’ve searched behind every star and looked under every rock to prove there’s no God. I’m an atheist because I want to live my life as if there’s no God.”

I can understand why she would say this - but why do people who believe in God say this also?

2. We Can Detest Any Response To God.

Don’t miss what I’m about to say…God doesn’t deal with atheism on an intellectual level - because atheism is not an intellectual issue, it’s a moral issue. It’s not so much a mental problem as it is a moral problem! Atheism is not a head problem - it’s a heart problem! Atheism is not a person who cannot believe in God as much as it’s a person who will not believe in God!