Denying the Power and Authority of God

Psalms 14:1-3 ESV

 

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

    They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;

    there is none who does good.

 

“The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man,

    to see if there are any who understand,

    who seek after God.

 

“They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;

    there is none who does good,

    not even one.”

 

The fool (joker, clown, deceiver, con artist, unwise, irrational, reckless, irresponsible, self-indulgent, wicked, and pleasure-driven) says in his heart (in his secret thoughts, in the core of his being) “there is no God” (or rather, “God is not”), denying the very nature and existence and the power of the one true and only God who created the world and everything in it.

 

And this takes place in his heart, in his innermost being, in his thinking and reasoning, in his emotions, and in the essence of who he is and what he is about. He may be merely denying the existence of God and/or he may be denying the power and authority of God over his life. For that is what fools do when they deny God his rightful place as King over their lives.

 

And they deny God his rightful place as ruler over their lives because they are corrupt, and because they want to engage in abominable deeds, and because they want to do the evil that is in their hearts, and they don’t want to submit to God and to have to obey his commands. For they still want to be ruler over their own lives. And this describes many professing Christians, too, who have bought into a half-truth gospel which demands no submission to Christ, no obedience to his commands, and no forsaking of sin.

 

In our flesh nature, we are all corrupt. None of us does good. None of us seeks after God. We have all turned aside and have gone our own way. We lack understanding. We do abominable deeds. And this is why God the Father sent Jesus Christ (God the Son) to the earth to die on a cross for our sins. He who knew no sin became sin for us on that cross so that we might die with Christ to sin and live to Christ and to his righteousness. For he died to deliver us from our slavery to sin so we’d be slaves of his righteousness.

 

Psalms 14:4-6 ESV

 

“Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers

    who eat up my people as they eat bread

    and do not call upon the Lord?

 

“There they are in great terror,

    for God is with the generation of the righteous.

You would shame the plans of the poor,

    but the Lord is his refuge.”

 

Now, “all the evildoers” is not just a description of all who make no profession of faith in Jesus Christ. For you can profess faith in Jesus Christ and still be an evildoer because your profession was lip service only and you never were crucified with Christ in death to sin nor were you raised with him to walk in newness of life in him, because you were convinced that you didn’t have to repent of your sins and that you don’t have to obey Jesus.

 

Evildoers are described in Scripture as those who are actively engaged in evil acts. Well, think with me about this for a moment. Since the inception of the “cheap grace gospel” which tells its adherents that they do not have to repent, obey, or submit to God, professing Christians have been giving lip service to God while they continue in premeditated, deliberate, and habitual sin against God and against their fellow humans, even family members.

 

And I am not saying that this did not exist before then, for hypocrisy has always existed, but now it is being given God’s blessings on such behavior. Therefore, many more are now still living in sin while they are claiming Christ as Savior, and sin abounds in the gatherings of the church (or what is falsely called church), and well over half of “Christian” men are engaged in porn addiction, including as much as 1/3 of pastors, and now women and children are following suit and growing in numbers, too.

 

So, it isn’t just those who make no profession of Christ who are “eating up God’s people as they eat bread” and who do not call upon the Lord, but it is a large number of professing Christians and even so-called pastors who are doing this to those of us who are still following Jesus Christ in obedience, and who are walking in the ways of the Lord, and who are still teaching the gospel as Jesus and his New Testament apostles taught it. We are now considered the “enemy” who must be silenced and cast aside.

 

Will God allow them to be successful in their evil plans, at least for a time? Perhaps yes, for the Scriptures do teach that we will be hated and persecuted as Jesus was, and it was the rulers in the temple of God who were our Lord’s greatest persecutors and the ones who arranged for his death on that cross, as well as it was many of Jesus’ fellow Jews who claimed to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

 

Also, we read in the book of Revelation that God will allow us to be conquered, not spiritually, but otherwise, by the beast, and that we will be persecuted and put to death for our testimonies for Jesus Christ and for his gospel. So, although God is with us for sure, and he is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in times of danger and distress, he doesn’t always remove us from persecution, but he takes us through it.

 

And one day he will judge our persecutors and it will not end well for them, for they will spend eternity in hell if they do not repent and if they do not forsake their sins to follow Jesus in obedience like Saul/Paul did.

 

Psalms 14:7 ESV

 

“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.”

 

Salvation did indeed come out of Zion, and his name is Jesus Christ, God the Son, the second person of our triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God the Father sent Jesus to die on a cross for our sins so that we might die with him to sin and live to him and to his righteousness. Jesus delivered us from our bondage (slavery, addiction) to sin so we will now be slaves of God and of his righteousness. For it is those who live righteously who are righteous.

 

By God’s grace and through God-given faith in Jesus Christ, which involves repentance, walks of obedience, and submission to Christ as Lord, we are saved from our slavery to sin and now we are to walk (in conduct, in practice) according to the Spirit and no longer according to the flesh.

 

For if we do not, and we continue on in our sin, in habitual and deliberate sin against our Lord and against his people, then we will not inherit eternal life with God but the wrath of God will be poured out on us. So, please take this to heart. If we live in sin, we will die in our sins, but if we live to please our Lord and we walk in obedience to his commands, we have eternal life.

 

[Lu 9:23-26; Jn 6:35-58; Jn 15:1-11; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; Eph 4:17-24; 1 Pet 2:24; 1 Co 6:9-10, 19-20; 2 Co 5:10, 15; Tit 2:11-14; Jas 1:22-25; Gal 5:16-21; Eph 5:3-6; Gal 6:7-8; Rom 2:6-8; Matt 7:21-23; Heb 10:26-27; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Rom 12:1-2; Eph 2:8-10]

 

The Prayer

 

Written by David Foster, Carole Bayer Sager,

Alberto Testa and Tony Renis

 

I pray you'll be our eyes

And watch us where we go

And help us to be wise

In times when we don't know

 

Let this be our prayer

When we lose our way

Lead us to a place

Guide us with your grace

To a place where we'll be safe.

 

I pray we'll find your light

And hold it in our hearts

When the stars go out each night

Remind us where you are.

 

Let this be our prayer

When shadows fill our day

Lead us to a place

Guide us with your grace

To a place where we'll be safe.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqFCbtRz1Z0

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P.S. This is not an endorsement of the singers other than as musicians