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THE KING’S BUSINESS The Folly of Unbelief By J. H. JOWETT, D. D. Text: “The fool hath said in his heart,There is no God." Psalm 14:1. T HERE is no God.” That is what the fool said. Ah, but it was the way in which he said it that re
are_ no “idle wishes." All wishes en shrine a certain influence, and tend to determine the lines and issues of life. We have evidence of their power on the commonest planes of life. For instance, I wish that a certain thing may happen. That wish does not travel alone. Its in fluence inevitably works to drag the judgment after it. Let the wish be per sisted in, and I shall come to believe that the certain thing will happen. Let the wish be still further deepened and in tensified, and I may come to believe that the certain thing has happened. There are multitudes of instances in which men have believed that certain events have occurred when in reality the entire transaction has been confined to the realms of desire. The judgment has been lured into practical deception by the sheer 'power of an intense desire. The wish was father to the thought. But Where do our wishes come from? They arise out of our character as natu rally and as inevitably as fragrance ex hales from a rose, or a noisome stench from a cesspool. If my heart be like a garden, abounding in flowers and fruits, the wishes that exhale from it will be full of sweet and pleasant influence. But if my heart abound in uncleanliness, the wishes that arise from it will toe noisome and impure. As I am, I wish. As I wish, I come to think. As I think, I judge. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Here, then, is the man of the text with the badness in his heart. He is a fool, morally degenerate. Out of his corrup tion corresponding wishes arise. He wishes there were no God. Then his wishing determines his thinking. He comes at last to think there may be no God. And at last, with impious hilarity, and with a note of most unholy triumph, “the-fool says in his heart—There is no God.” He begins by defying God, he ends at last by denying God. What is the lesson of it all? It is just this—that all sin works toward unbelief. All godlessness creates a desire that there were no God, and tends to snare the judgment into a practical atheism. Let us pray for clean hearts. It is in these that safety lies. Let us pray the Lord to rid us of all defilement.
vealed him to be a fool. There are souls which just whisper to themselves: “There is no God,” and the secret utter ance fills their hearts with cold, benumb ing fear. They have stepped from one calamity into another. All their ways are beaten up. The lines of their life are filled with perversity and confusion; and as they move amid the encircling deso lations, a fear steals across their hearts and minds with the chilling touch of a cold night-wind. “There is no God.” They stretch out their poor lame hand of faith, like blind, halt -men feeling for some tangible support, and they seem to touch nothing. Are they the fools of the text? Nay, these are the seekers, and eventually all seekers shall be finders, and shall come into the satisfying pres ence of the unveiled glory. Who, then, is the fool of the text? Let us read it again, and read between the lines. “The fool hath said—” Now you must insert a shout of hilarious laughter. We miss the meaning of the words if we leave out the laughter. How much the laugh reveals! “The fool hath said in his heart: There is no God,” and he said it with a laugh, a flippant laugh, a laugh which betokened a glad and wel come relief. Now the Scriptures affirm that a man who can say: “There is no God,” and say at with a laugh, is a “fool,” and by a “fool” is meant something in finitely more than senseless or unwise. The word “fool” as used in the Old Test ament is not an intellectual term, denot ing Want of wisdom: it is a moral term, denoting want of virtue. Here, then, is the full force of the psalmist’s words. The man who can say: “There is no God,” and can say it with a light and jubilant laugh, is a fool; at his heart there is moral rottenness; there is bad ness at the very core of his being. Why does the fool say: “There is no God?” Because that is what the fool wishes to believe. The wish is the father to the thought. Our wishes exer cise a far more tyrannical dominion in our lives than we commonly suppose. Our wishes play round our minds, and shape and color our judgments, There
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