The Psalm starts by establishing a truth with fact. The truth is that every human soul is morally depraved. With this truth, God says that we are fools. Fool in Hebrew is “nabal” meaning “vile person, one who is morally deficient”. The fact to establish the truth that every soul is morally depraved is that we all say in our hearts, “There is no God.” (Psalm 10:4, 11; 36:1; 130:3; 143:2; Job 1-3; Ecclesiastes 7:20-22; 1 Kings 8:46)
This does not state that we say, “There is no God” with our mouths. This says we say it with our hearts. The fact is that our heart holds the belief that there is no God. The heart motivates the body. So when trouble or good times come our heart motivates us to do things and say things from its core belief that there is no God. This is sin, a morally deficient heart.
Everybody acts from their heart-belief that there is no God. It takes things into our own control. It conducts all kinds of vile acts. It keeps us from doing righteous acts. This is true for everyone including the religious, including the devout.
In everyone’s mind comes thoughts from the heart-belief that there is no God. We may repent of such thoughts and actions, but the fact remains that if we had heart-believed that there is a God we would have never had that thought nor the act from the start.
Worse yet is when we realize that we had an ungodly thought and say to ourselves, “That thought didn’t come from me. The devil gave me that thought.” We do not admit that the thought came from a morally deficient heart-belief. So again we establish that we are a fool who will not accept the fact that we are also among those who are vile.
When the Psalms and other books in the Bible state the truth that there is no one who does good (Psalm 53:1, 3; Romans 3:12), it does not continue with “…except those that read the Bible and are active in their congregation,” nor does it continue with “…except those that share the good news,” nor does it continue with “…except those that shepherd my people.” This is because the LORD God who looks down from heaven to judge the heart of everyone determines there are no one who understands, no one who seeks God and he reveals this truth through his word.
The actions and the thoughts that come from our vile hearts make it clear for everyone to self-see if we are honest with ourselves before God, our true and ultimate judge. The Spirit of God reveals to us our heart-belief that there is no God. It shows us we are the ones that corrupt ourselves.
Is there any hope for anyone? Yes. Only by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Through Jesus’ blood, God overlooks, forgives, and gets rid of the morally depraved soul that motivates us to be the fool. Salvation for the morally depraved human race rests only in Jesus. (John 14:6; Acts 4:12; 2 Corinthians 6:2)
