Psalm 14 - ‘The final days, the days of the fool’.
The ‘wicked one’ of Ps 10 is the same as the ‘fool’ here in Ps 14. They both deny the reality of ‘Elohim’, the God of the Bible, Ps 10:3, 13. In both instances, it is a reference to the Antichrist.
Note that the Psalm was dedicated‘To the chief Musician’. This suggests that it was used in public worship. God, who inspired David, would have us to know about the fool. David was led to repeat this truth in Psalm 53:1-3. Paul enlarges upon David’s words in his epistle to the Romans 3:10-18. He concludes in verse 23, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”
1. Unconverted man is a fool. In truth we are all born fools, both Jews and Gentiles, Psalm 73:23. It is God’s Word that alone can make us ‘wise’. “And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus,” 2 Tim 3:15.
The heart of the unconverted man is a ‘treasury’ of folly! That is all that is in his heart! “They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one, ”verse 3.
2. The heart is the reservoir of our folly. Here is what he thinks. “There is no God.” That is what dominates his heart and fills it and overflows into his mouth and life! He is the first victim of such thinking. He is saying to himself that there is no God! This is the most foolish thing a man can think or say. It flies in the face of unlimited evidence of God’s existence. Psalm 19:1-4.
3. Such folly produces great wickedness. Verse 3. This is the conclusion the Lord draws after inspecting mankind. “The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God,” verse 2. There is no moral restraint or curtailment upon the person who believes there is no God. God said of the people who built the tower of Babel: “Now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do,” Genesis 11:6.
4. The last days are to be the days of the ‘fool’! The prophetic date of this psalm may be seen in the last verse. “Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion!” This glorious day was ever in the mind of the believing Jew. We will consider that more fully at our next assembly together.