Lectionary Calendar
Saturday, July 19th, 2025
the Week of Proper 10 / Ordinary 15
the Week of Proper 10 / Ordinary 15
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Bible Commentaries
The Church Pulpit Commentary Church Pulpit Commentary
Copyright Statement
These files are public domain.
Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission.
These files are public domain.
Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission.
Bibliographical Information
Nisbet, James. "Commentary on Psalms 53". The Church Pulpit Commentary. https://studylight.org/commentaries/eng/cpc/psalms-53.html. 1876.
Nisbet, James. "Commentary on Psalms 53". The Church Pulpit Commentary. https://studylight.org/
Whole Bible (38)Old Testament (1)Individual Books (4)
Verses 1-2
THE FOLLY OF ATHEISM
âThe fool hath said in his heart, There is no God,â etc.
Psalms 53:1-2
There seems to be something intentionally emphatic about the charge against the atheist in the text, as though the wickedness of a man in saying, âThere is no God,â were lost in the folly of it, as though when David heard a man sneeringly remark that there was no God he forgot for a moment the manâs sensuality and licentiousness in his astonishment at his weakness.
I. Suppose a man to say absolutely, âThere is no God,â thus going beyond the heathen, as some few profess to have done, then in this case the folly is so palpable that all nature seems to protest against it. The question, Who made all these things? confounds such miserable atheism.
II. The denial that God rules and governs the world by just laws, punishing the wicked and rewarding the just, may also, without much difficulty, be convicted of folly, for consider, is it possible to think of God as being otherwise than perfect?âAn imperfect God is no God at all; if perfect, then He must be perfect in goodness, in holiness, in truth.
III. There is one other manner in which a man may deny God.âHe may refuse homage to that God whom we worship as revealed to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice two or three points from which the folly of such a man may appear open and manifest. (1) Most holy and thoughtful men have found in the revelation which God has made to man through the Lord Jesus Christ the satisfaction of all their spiritual wants. (2) Observe the wonderful power that this revelation has had: how it has unquestionably been the mainspring, the chief mover, of all the history of the world since the time that Christ came. (3) If Christ be not âthe Way, the Truth, and the Life,â at least there is no other. Either God has revealed Himself in Christ, or He has not revealed Himself at all, for there is no other religion in the world which any one will pretend to substitute.
âBishop Harvey Goodwin.
Illustration
âThere is the man who, bursting with his own prodigious wisdom, rides roughshod over evidence of every kind, and dashes madly, blindly into the battle of life, with âNo God!â as his battle-cry; until he falls, at last, wounded by the Lord of Hosts, whose existence he has denied. In his conceptions of lifeââNo God!â; in thoughts of marriageââNo God!â; in conduct of his businessââNo God!â; and in the training of his childrenââNo God!â Such an one sought to wed his little girl to his disbelief. One day he was ill in bed, when the child came into the room with her slate from school. He wrote upon it, âGod is nowhere!â and asked her to read it. The little one in her innocence spelled it out, âGod is now here!â âTwas but a trifling change, but eternal issues hung upon it.â