Psalms 14:3

They are all gone aside.

Man falls lower and lower

The mind end heart having gone astray--having been turned aside like a deceitful bow,--nothing became easier than to sink into ever-deepening abysses of iniquity; the case is put also negatively, so as to fill up the measure of the great accusation, “There is none that doeth good, no, not one.” Man cannot stop in a morally negative condition. Again and again this solemn lesson has been forced upon us by the whole current of history, and yet an insidious temptation assails the heart with the thought that it is still possible to forsake religious convictions and professions, and yet to preserve a pure and noble life. The backslider and the truth seeker must never be regarded as one and the same person. God having been surrendered as the supreme thought of the mind and the supreme rule of conduct, a scene of infinite confusion presented itself: workers of iniquity carried on their evil service as if in darkness; their mouths were opened in cruelty upon any who feared and worshipped God; the counsel of the poor was treated with contempt, and the poor themselves were devoured rapaciously. Where reverence has been abandoned it has been impossible to sustain true and self-sacrificing philanthropy. In this case reverence has been formally given up, and so a great act of moral spoliation has been accomplished. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)

There is none that doeth good, no, not one.

Man fallen and depraved

I. The inborn depravity of our nature.

1. What saith the Scripture?

2. The records of human experience are to the same effect. See the moral misery of the world. Look at the evidence of our inborn depravity in the manifold outbreakings of wickedness in every age and circumstance of life. Notice also the corruption and infirmity which is found remaining even in good men. We cannot read the sins of Abraham, and David, and Peter, and Moses without many painful and humiliating thoughts. Who can stand if they fell?

II. In what does this original depravity of our nature chiefly consist?

1. In the depravation of our intellectual faculties. The mind of our race has become blinded. Civilisation gives no Divine knowledge.

2. In the perversion and rebellion of the will. By the will we understand the commanding faculty of the soul by which it chooses or rejects anything that may be offered to it.

3. In our disordered and alienated affections. Such a threefold cord against God and holiness we might well fear could not be broken. But thanks be to God, there is one who can break it. “Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (D. Moore, M. A.)