The Folly of Unbelief, and Other Meditations for Quiet Moments

TyHE following expositions, which appeared originally in The Sunday at Home, are now published in this collected form in the hope that they may offer suggestions for helpful meditation in the quieter moments of our busy and hurrying day.

1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.*

Psalm xiv. I.

‘HERE is no God, That is what the fool said. Ah, but it was the way in which he said it that revealed him to be a fool. There are souls which just whisper to themselves: ‘There is no God, and the secret utterance fills their hearts with cold, benumbing fear. They have stepped from one calamity into another. The floods are out. All their ways are beaten up. The lines of their life are filled with perversity and confusion; and as they move amid the encircling desolations, a fear steals across their minds and hearts 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 these the fools of the text?

Nay, these are seekers, and eventually all seekers shall be finders, and shall come into the satisfying presence 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 laugh. 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 welcome relief. Now the Scriptures affirm that the man who can say: ‘There is no God, and say it with a laugh, is a ’ fool, and by ’ fool ’ is meant something infinitely more than senseless or unwise. The word ‘fool, as used in the Old Testament, is not an intellectual term, denoting want of wisdom; it is a moral term, denoting lack 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 badness at the very core of his being.

Why does ‘the fool’ say: ‘There is no God ‘? Because that is what the fool wishes

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to believe. The wish is the father to the thought. Our wishes exercise a far more tyrannical dominion in our lives than we commonly suppose. Our wishes play round about our minds, and shape and colour our judgements. There are no ’ idle wishes, All wishes enshrine 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 will not travel alone. Its influence inevitably works to drag the judgement after it. Let the wish be persisted in, and I shall come to believe that the certain thing will happen. Let the wish be still further deepened and intensified, 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 realm of desire. The judgement has been lured into practical deception by the sheer power of an intense desire. The wish was the father to the thought.

But where do wishes come from? They arise out of our character as naturally and as inevitably as fragrance exhales from a rose, or a noisome stench from a cesspool. If my

heart be like a garden, abounding in beautiful flowers and fruits, the wishes that exhale from it will be full of sweet and pleasant influence. But if my heart abound in uncleanness, the wishes that arise from it will be 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 bel

Here, then, is the man of the text with the badness in his heart. He is a fool, morally degenerate. Out of his pollution corresponding wishes arise. He wishes there were no God. Then his wishing determines his thinking. He comes 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 by denying God.

What is the lesson of it all? It is just this — that all sin works towards unbelief. All godlessness creates a desire that there were no God, and tends to snare the judgement 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. And if perchance there be lurking within our hearts some hidden sin, which like a secret tumour is sickening the entire life, let us go

before the Lord with the psalmist’s prayer upon our lips: ‘Cleanse Thou me from secret faults, ‘Create within me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me/

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