Here's an enlightening exposition on Psalm 53:1 by noted Christian
theologian Charles Spurgeon.
May God bless,
Carl
my website -- http://www.nettally.com/saints/
my blog -- http://www.anniemayhem.com/cgi-bin/wordpress/
---
Exposition On Psalm 53:1
by C.H. Spurgeon
Psalm 53:1
The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and
have
done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good. (KJV)
Ver. 1. The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. And this he does
because he is a fool. Being a fool he speaks according to his nature;
being
a great fool he meddles with a great subject, and comes to a wild
conclusion. The atheist is, morally as well as mentally, a fool, a fool in
the heart as well as in the head; a fool in morals as well as in
philosophy.
With the denial of God as a starting point, we may well conclude that the
fool's progress is a rapid, riotous, raving, ruinous one. He who begins at
impiety is ready for anything.
No God, being interpreted, means no law, no order, no restraint to lust,
no
limit to passion. Who but a fool would be of this mind? What a Bedlam, or
rather what an Aceldama, would the world become if such lawless principles
came to be universal! He who heartily entertains an irreligious spirit,
and
follows it out to its legitimate issues is a son of Belial, dangerous to
the
commonwealth, irrational, and despicable. Every natural man is, more or
less
a denier of God. Practical atheism is the religion of the race.
Corrupt are they. They are rotten. It is idle to compliment them as
sincere
doubters, and amiable thinkers--they are putrid. There is too much dainty
dealing nowadays with atheism; it is not a harmless error, it is an
offensive, putrid sin, and righteous men should look upon it in that
light.
All men being more or less atheistic in spirit, are also in that degree
corrupt; their heart is foul, their moral nature is decayed.
And have done abominable iniquity. Bad principles soon lead to bad lives.
One does not find virtue promoted by the example of your Voltaires and Tom
Paines. Those who talk so abominably as to deny their Maker will act
abominably when it serves their turn. It is the abounding denial and
forgetfulness of God among men which is the source of the unrighteousness
and crime which we see around us. If all men are not outwardly vicious it
is
to be accounted for by the power of other and better principles, but left
to
itself the "No God" spirit so universal in mankind would produce nothing
but
the most loathsome actions.
There is none that doeth good. The one typical fool is reproduced in the
whole race; without a single exception men have forgotten the right way.
This accusation twice made in the Psalm, and repeated a third time by the
inspired apostle Paul, is an indictment most solemn and sweeping, but he
who
makes it cannot err, he knows what is in man; neither will he lay more to
man's charge than he can prove.
|
