All Have Become Corrupt

Posted on by korgrocker

“Only fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, and their actions are evil; not one of them does good! The Lord looks down from heaven on the entire human race; he looks to see if anyone is truly wise, if anyone seeks God. But no, all have turned away; all have become corrupt. No one does good, not a single one!”
Psalm 14:13 NLT

A damning indictment of the human race from David. He equates those who say “There is no God”, or fail to seek Him, with people who lack wisdom and are corrupt. The corrupt, he writes, also fail to do good. He wrote that “The Lord looked down from Heaven” to make this observation, but does the word “entire” include righteous people as well? But then, who of us is really righteous? Imagine the grief that God must have felt, as sin entered the human race and made everyone “corrupt”. We remember Paul’s words in Romans 3:23, “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard”. 

The dictionary defines “corrupt” with references to dishonest dealings with money, but it is more than that. Any object can be corrupted by a malign action. Imagine a perfect mirror corrupted by a scratch. Or a sculpture or other work of art desecrated, corrupted by a deliberate act of vandalism. But here’s the thing, imagine a perfect human being, created in the image of God, but then corrupted by sin, the consequence of a devious thought introduced by the devil in a conversation that has had lasting connotations. What a tragedy! 

Corruption started in the Garden with the introduction of sickness and death, moral contamination and spiritual decay. The sin that blighted humanity caused spiritual death – Ephesians 2:1, “Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins“. In Genesis 6:11-12 we read what Noah’s generation was like, “Now God saw that the earth had become corrupt and was filled with violence. God observed all this corruption in the world, for everyone on earth was corrupt” and God decided that he would start again with Noah and his family, eliminating the corrupt from the earth. 

And so it would have continued, with every person deemed “corrupt” before spending eternity in hell, because there can be no corruption in Heaven. The Jews were given the Law to help them escape the consequences of corruption, but God’s intention to save His people was rejected by many of them. So God finally provided the ultimate solution to sin’s corruption by sending His Son, Jesus, to save the world. 2 Peter 1:3-4 summed up God’s amazing grace, “By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvellous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires“. Jesus was and still is the “great and precious promise” allowing all who believe in Him to live a Godly life.

But before we pilgrims start to feel a bit smug because we think we have escaped the consequences of corruption, be aware that such thoughts are sinful and are in danger of relegating us back into the company of the corrupt. We need to keep short accounts with our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus. They paid the ultimate price for our freedom, remember that!

Dear Lord Jesus. Thank You for coming to this world to save us from the corruption of sin. Amen.

Only Fools

Posted on by korgrocker

“Only fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, and their actions are evil; not one of them does good!”
Psalm 14:1 NLT

The Bible, particularly in Proverbs, says much about “fools”. One verse I particularly like, as being very applicable to modern times, is Proverbs 18:2, “Fools have no interest in understanding; they only want to air their own opinions”. In these days of strange ideologies, where people stand up and stridently declare their views, “their own opinions”, one cannot but think that the word “fool” fits them very well. But then, we can’t call them that, because it might hurt their feelings. The Bible, however, has no such constraint, and God’s Word stands inviolate. But back in Psalm 14:1, David, the Psalmist, calls those who deny the existence of God, “fools”, and such an opinion, or belief, exposes their real problem – their corrupt ways, their evil actions and their lack of doing good. Those who deny God do so because otherwise they would have to face into their sin and its consequences. 

Much of what the people in the world think about God is misconstrued, twisted, invented and even libellous, but such false knowledge isn leveraged to build a picture to justify people’s actions, or lack of them. But for many others, they look around and see no evidence of God at all because, “Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4). Many of our scientists stay awake at night trying to plug holes in their theories of how the universe happened without God. So the conclusion of most is that there is no God, but if He does in fact exist, the knowledge is of no relevance to them. After all, they might say, knowledge of God won’t pay their bills. 

We pilgrims, of course, declare that God exists, and we know that we have a personal relationship with Him. We know Him as the Creator of the Universe. We know Jesus who died on a cross at Calvary to take on the punishment for our sins. We know that our God sent His Spirit to be with us, and live within us, a Helper and Counsellor always there for us. And we praise and worship God with thankful hearts, grateful for His love, grace and mercy. We keep short accounts with Him, always aware of our humanity and propensity to fall into sinful ways. Always humbly confessing our sins before Him who one day will judge the world.

It is so tempting at times to investigate the views of those who air their own corrupt opinions. We spend time thinking through the logic of devil-inspired arguments and ideologies, in case we have missed something. And before we know it our own view of God becomes skewed. There are many believers who post their own opinions on social media. They make videos of convincing scenarios that burden and confuse their viewers. They preach strange ideas that lead many astray, their charisma overcoming the doubts of their followers. Jesus warned about such people in a passage that describes what will happen in the End Times, and we read in Matthew 24:11, “And many false prophets will appear and will deceive many people“. So, we must be like the Bereans of Acts 17:11, “And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul’s message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth”. In the end, it is God’s Word that prevents us from becoming fools, and we must be on our guard against false teaching. Paul had strong words for the church in Galatia, “Oh, foolish Galatians! Who has cast an evil spell on you? For the meaning of Jesus Christ’s death was made as clear to you as if you had seen a picture of his death on the cross” (Galatians 3:1). 

So we pilgrims exercise caution when we hear a message or see a video. We carefully select books to read, always being vigilant to discern error. However, the denial of the existence of God may not just be an outward declaration from those unbelievers in the societies around us. Their secular and atheistic influence can also insidiously creep upon us until the God we say we believe in is a long way from the truth. Everyone believes in a god of some kind, and the devil is out to so corrupt us that we end up believing in a false god as well. That is a terrible place to be because we end up believing our own opinions rather than in the true God we know and love. The world may consider us fools, but better to be a fool for Christ than a fool denying His existence.

Dear Father God. In the eyes of the world we may appear foolish, but rather that than be numbered with real fools. Thank You for Your grace and mercy. Amen.