We Are Not Uncertain

In 1 Samuel 25, David is still on the run from king Saul, who wants to kill him. The prophet Samuel, who has just died, anointed David as king. Saul wants to wipe him out, but the writing is on the wall. Even Saul has just confessed it (1 Samuel 24:20). But for now, the future king awaits his time, with 600 men who have gathered to him, in the wilderness.

“Let not my lord regard this worthless fellow, Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name, and folly is with him” (verse 25).

There in the wilderness David has a run in with a rich man, who has thousands of sheep and goats. We’re told his name is Nabal, which means fool in Hebrew.

Nabal is harsh and badly behaved, while his wife, named Abigail, is discerning and beautiful (1 Samuel 25:3). David’s men have been doing him a favor by protecting his shepherds and flocks. So David has reason to think Nabal will be gracious to him. So David sends ten of his young men to go, in David’s name, to ask, very politely, for food.

Nabal answers as a fool: “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse?” (verse 10). This is not ignorance; it’s an insult. He knows exactly who David is. Everyone knows. This is the one who killed Goliath, and the one Samuel has anointed king — but Nabal is a fool. He treats the rightful king like he’s just some rascal in the wilderness.

And not only does Nabal turn David’s men away, but he insults David. “He railed at them” (verse 14). Nabal says, in essence, in his heart, “There is no rightful king,” meaning David is a nobody. Nabal acts as though there will be no reckoning for his bad behavior. Not only has he declined to help. He’s added insult to miserliness.

When word comes to David and his mighty men, he says, “Every man strap on his sword!” (verse 13), and he begins marching 400 men strong toward Nabal’s estate.

One of Nabal’s servants heard the exchange, suspected they are doomed, and told Abigail. She hurries to prepare provisions for David and his men and rides out to meet them, confessing her husband’s folly:

She confesses that things are not what they seem — despite present appearances, she knows that David has God’s anointing and will be king (verse 28). And she pleads that David not bring guilt on himself by avenging himself against such a fool. At Abigail’s wise words, David comes to his senses. He praises Abigail and her discretion (verse 33) and sends her home in peace.

The next day when Abigail tells her husband Nabal what has happened, he immediately he realizes the error of his ways. David may not yet be king; he may seem like a poor, lowly scoundrel in the wilderness. But this is God’s anointed. Indeed things are not what they seem. Nabal has been a fool, and now, hearing the words of his wise and discerning wife, it lands on him with great terror.

“His heart died within him, and he became as stone. And about ten days later the Lord struck Nabal, and he died.”

Three Voices in Psalm 14

The reason for beginning with the tragedy of Nabal, and the wisdom of Abigail, is because Psalm 14 begins with the fool, Hebrew nabal:

“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”

That doesn’t mean that this is a psalm about the particular man called Nabal, but his story, along with other psalms, helps to show us what kind of fool David has in mind here in Psalm 14 — and the very different kind of person God calls us to be as his people.

There are three distinct voices here in Psalm 14. Let’s listen to each of them in turn.

1. The voice of the fool, in his heart

Note that the fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” Not in his mouth here. But in his heart. The focus here is not on professed atheism. This is not mainly intellectual but moral. Not someone telling the world there is no God, but telling himself. The fool is someone, like Nabal, who presumes he can act without accountability. That God will not hold him responsible for his actions. We saw this in Psalm 10:

In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, “There is no God.” (Psalm 10:4)

Why does the wicked renounce God and say in his heart, “You will not call to account”? (Psalm 10:13)

God does not immediately right every wrong. Fools observe this and assume he will not right their wrong, that God will not hold them accountable. He may be there. He may see. But he won’t do anything about it. That’s what it seems like.

But the psalms teach us over and over “things are not what they seem.” God sees. He knows. He is patient. Yet he will bring all to account. The wise live in that light. The foolish do not. Fools live in light of what they can see in the present.

And this lie in the heart of the fool — which we all have told ourselves at times, have we not? — affects the fool himself, and God, and other people. The fool himself is “corrupt” (which brings to mind Genesis 6:11–13 and coming judgment).

But not only are they corrupt, but “they do abominable deeds”—that’s God’s perspective. Abominable means morally repulsive. Not just frowned upon by God, but hated. Actively opposed. Inciting omnipotent wrath. And also affecting neighbor: “there is none who does good”—that is, doing good for others. Other people are going without good because of the inward corruption of the fool who tells himself God will not hold him accountable.

But it doesn’t stay there with the absence of good. It goes to the next level.

So, first, comes the voice of the fool in his heart.

2. The voice of God, looking down from heaven

God looks down. He sees. He knows. He knows the lies the fool tells himself in his heart. And he sees the life of private corruption and public privation, he finds it abominable, and he looks to see, Are there any who act wisely? Are there any who seek after me? Verse 3 answers with strikingly universalizing language: none.

"They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one."

Those final three words sum up verses 1–3: not even one. The contrast here between “the children of man” and God’s people (“my people” in verse 4) is stark. And in verse 4, it goes to the next level: not only are they corrupt, but also they mistreat God’s people.

God says, “they eat up my people as they eat bread.” So there is an inevitable parting of the ways. No matter how much “the children of man” may seem benign or tolerant of God’s people for a season, it’s just a matter of time until those who reject God eventually oppose his people.

One reason is that God’s people, as they live faithfully in the world, remind the children of man that something is not right. Deep down unbelievers know they have turned from God and are running from him—and they are in great terror that, despite what they’ve told themselves, God will hold them accountable.

Paul writes to the Philippians to encourage them, in such hard times, opposed by the world, to stand firm “in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God” (Philippians 1:27–28).

In other words, by standing side by side, and holding firm to the gospel, and not being frightened by those trying to “eat up [God’s] people as they eat bread,” we signal to them that they are on the wrong side of history, not us. A joyful, un-frightened unified church in the face of opposition shows God’s enemies they are on the path of destruction, and that we are on the path of final rescue.

So, then, a “great terror” falls on them, not God’s people. Look at verse 5: “There they are in great terror, for God is with the generation of the righteous.” The great terror may fall on them in a moment, like Nabal. “His wife told him these things, and his heart died within him, and he became as a stone” (1 Samuel 25:37). Or like it did for Haman, when Esther revealed his plot to the king (Esther 7:6). Or like it did for Satan when Jesus’s cold, death heart warmed and began to beat again on Resurrection Sunday.

This “great terror” falling on God’s enemies in Psalm 14 anticipates the cross, when the very moment of greatest evil and oppression of the righteous becomes the decisive defeat of evil. Friday and Saturday Satan thought he had triumphed. Then came Sunday morning.

Yesterday Nabal thought he was railing at a lowly hooligan. Today he realizes he was dealing with God’s anointed.

Portrait of God’s People

But so far we’ve focused on the fool, “the children of man,” those who opposed God and his people. That’s how the psalm begins, and that’s the initial focus, there is also, by way of contrast, a portrait of God’s people. Three parts of the portrait are in verses 2–6. All three are always relevant — and especially precious to rehearse now in this new and unusual season in which we’re living.

1. We Seek After Him.

“The Lord looks down from heaven . . . to see if there are any who . . . who seek after God.”

God’s people not only have been sought out by him, but we seek after him. Are you seeking him? How are you seeking him, especially in this season? When this season ends, how sweet would it be to say that one of the upshots was that we renewed and intensified our pursuit of God. We sought him more, and found him, and drew closer, not further away, because of the coronavirus outbreak of 2020.

How do we seek him? In his word. In what we hear. In what we read. In conversation. In worship. In prayer. Which leads to the second.

2. We Call on Him by Name.

“All the evildoers . . . not call upon the LORD.”

To “call upon the LORD”—by his name, Yahweh, the LORD, all caps—means not simply to cry out to an unknown god, but to the God of the covenant. To call on the God who has made himself known, and made utterly certain promises to us. To call on him means to to ask him, and rely on him, to fulfill his promises, to fulfill the terms of the covenant.

We pray. We ask. We call on him by the name he has revealed to us. Which in Psalm 14 is Yahweh, and for us today, as Christians, is Jesus. Which leads to a third attribute of God’s people.

3. We Shelter in Him.

"You would shame the plans of the poor, but the Lord is his refuge."

When God’s enemies “eat up” God’s people, insulting them, maligning them, mistreating them, even attacking them, where do God’s people go? Where do we shelter? That’s what a refuge is. A safe place. A shelter from threat. He is our refuge, our safe place, our haven, our safe place.

But God is not only our shelter from the threat out there in the world. God is also our shelter from the threat *in here*, *in our own hearts*.

There’s a tension in this psalm you may have felt already.

Sinful and Safe?

In verse 3, when the universalizing language is so striking — none, all, not any, none, no not one — is this referring just to God’s enemies? Are not God’s own people included in none, all, not any, no not one?

The apostle Paul felt the tension, and he thought that Psalm 14 does condemn us all. He quotes verses 1–3 in Romans 3:10–12 to make the point that “all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin” (Romans 3:9).

We all are born into and live in such depravity. We all are born into the beginning of this psalm. The question is will we be reborn into the end? Will the end be just as true of us as the beginning? And does that happen? The only way out is for God’s people to seek him, and call upon him, and take shelter in him.

Psalm 14 doesn’t give us the details. We don’t know how our seeking after God, and our calling on him by covenant name, and our sheltering in him covers us from the guilt of our sin. There is a trust that God will take care of it. But in the gospel of Christ, we now know how God takes care of it. The gospel answers the tension in Psalm 14 between all being sinful and God’s people being safe.

3. The voice of God’s people, rejoicing in praise

Psalm 14 moves from the heart of the fool, to the eyes of the Lord, and finishes with the mouths of the wise. Look at verse 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.”

As God’s people now open their mouths in praise, still in the midst of their distress and trouble, they look first to him as their salvation and hope. “Oh that salvation would come from Zion!”—from his holy hill, from his temple, from God. They’re not looking elsewhere for rescue and safety. Not to other nations. Not to their own strength. Not to epidemiologists and statisticians. Not to economists and politicians. God’s people look to him. Oh, that shelter would come from our God!

So for us, in our present distress, are we looking first and foremost to our God—not doctors, not to our hygiene, not to our distancing, not to our own immune systems? Are we looking primarily, and most deeply, to God as our rescue, and our shelter, from this and all else?

And this psalm ends with two final parts of the portrait of God’s people in verse 7. Not only do we seek after him, call upon him by name, and take shelter in him. But now, two final, precious parts:

We Look to a Certain Future.

When, not if. The psalm doesn’t end with a condition, but with confidence. Not if. But when. It’s just a matter of time. God’s people—the underdog—will win in the end. God will see to it. God loves underdog stories. He writes them. David’s was an underdog story. And Jesus’s. And Israel’s. And the church’s. We don’t start on top, or stay on top. But God sees to it that we end on top. For God’s people, the best is always yet to come.

And so we worship in great hope—and in doing so, we rejoice now. That’s the final part.

We Rejoice Even Now in Our Uncertain Present.

Knowing that our final victory in Christ, is when, not if, we are glad now. In the present. We don’t wait for the end to come to begin experiencing the joy. Because Christ is on his throne now, and because his final victory is certain—even though we live in uncertainty—we believe that things are not what they seem.

God is for his people who shelter in Christ, no matter what it looks like. Folly lives in light of appearances. Wisdom lives in light of God’s word, what he has promised, knowing that no matter how things look for now, Christ is king and he will right every wrong in the end.