The Internal Oracle of Sin Text: Psalm 36:1-4
Introduction: The Anatomy of a Rebel
We live in an age that is determined to misunderstand the nature of sin. The modern world wants to treat sin as a mistake, a social maladjustment, a psychological tic, or a cry for help. It is anything and everything except what it actually is: high treason against the living God. And because we misdiagnose the disease so profoundly, our proposed cures are not just ineffective; they are poison. They are part of the disease.
If you want to understand the riots in our cities, the breakdown of our families, the corruption in our governments, and the confusion in our churches, you have to understand the logic of the lawless heart. You must perform an autopsy on the ungodly man. And that is precisely what David does for us in this psalm. This is not, we should note, an imprecatory psalm where David calls down judgment. Rather, it is an oracle. It is a divine revelation, a prophetic insight into the operating system of the wicked. David is pulling back the curtain on the internal monologue of a man who has rejected God.
What David reveals is that sin is not just an action; it is a worldview. It is a competing religion. It has its own prophet, its own gospel, and its own god. The prophet is transgression itself, speaking from within. The gospel is a message of self-flattery. And the god, of course, is the self. This psalm is a brilliant diagnosis of the downward spiral that begins when a man stops listening to God and starts listening to the oracle of his own rebellion.
We must understand this because this rebellious heart is the heart we all possess by nature. This is not a psalm about "those people" out there. This is a description of what every one of us is apart from the invasive, regenerating grace of God in Jesus Christ. This is a portrait of the old man. And for the believer, it is a warning against letting that old man have the microphone ever again.
The Text
Transgression declares to the ungodly within his heart;
There is no dread of God before his eyes.
For it flatters him in his eyes
For one to discover his iniquity and hate it.
The words of his mouth are wickedness and deceit;
He has ceased to consider to do good.
He devises wickedness upon his bed;
He sets himself on a path that is not good;
He does not despise evil.
(Psalm 36:1-4 LSB)
The Prophet in the Heart (v. 1)
We begin with the source of the problem, the internal oracle of sin.
"Transgression declares to the ungodly within his heart; There is no dread of God before his eyes." (Psalm 36:1)
This first phrase is striking. The word for "declares" is the word for a divine oracle. It is the word used for a prophet bringing a message from God. But here, the prophet is not Nathan or Isaiah. The prophet is "Transgression." Sin itself has set up a pulpit in the heart of the ungodly man and is preaching sermons to him. Sin is personified as a false prophet, whispering its satanic liturgies into the sinner's soul. And what is the substance of this sermon? What is the central doctrine of this internal oracle?
"There is no dread of God before his eyes." This is the foundation of all practical atheism. The ungodly man may not be a theoretical atheist; he might even say he believes in God. But his sin-prophet has convinced him that this God is not to be feared. He is a tame God, a manageable God, a God who does not judge, a God who winks at sin. The "dread of God" is not a cowering, craven terror. It is the sane, healthy, creaturely recognition of who God is: holy, righteous, just, and a consuming fire. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, which means that the lack of it is the beginning of utter folly. When you eject the fear of God, you have just kicked out the load-bearing wall of your sanity.
Notice the two locations. The oracle is in his heart, the center of his being, his will, his affections. The effect is before his eyes, his perception, his outlook on the world. His internal corruption has blinded his external vision. He cannot see God as He is because the prophet in his heart is telling him that God is not who He is. This is why you cannot reason a man out of a position he was not reasoned into. His problem is not a lack of evidence for God's authority; his problem is a rebellious heart that is actively suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.
The Gospel of Self-Flattery (v. 2)
Next, David explains how this rebellion is sustained. How does a man live with himself when he is at war with his Creator? Through the opiate of self-deception.
"For it flatters him in his eyes For one to discover his iniquity and hate it." (Psalm 36:2 LSB)
The "it" here is transgression, that lying prophet in his heart. Sin's gospel is a gospel of flattery. It whispers to him, "You are good. You are the victim. Your desires are noble. Your motives are pure. You deserve this." This flattery is a blinding agent. It is a spiritual cataract that grows over his eyes, making it impossible for him to see his own iniquity for what it is. The text is a bit compressed, but the meaning is that sin's flattery works "until his iniquity is found to be hateful." In other words, he is able to coast on this self-admiration until the consequences of his sin become so disastrous that even he cannot deny them. The flattery works right up to the point of implosion.
This is the great paradox of pride. The proud man cannot see his own sin because he hates the very thought of it. Not that he hates the sin itself, but he hates the idea that he could be the kind of person who commits such a sin. His pride makes self-examination impossible. So he projects, he blames, he rationalizes. He builds a fortress of excuses around his ego, and the mortar holding the bricks together is self-flattery. He cannot afford to discover his iniquity and hate it, because to do so would be to dethrone the god of self, and he would rather go to Hell than do that.
The Fruit of a Corrupt Heart (v. 3)
From the corrupt heart and the blind eyes, we now see the inevitable result in the man's words and actions.
"The words of his mouth are wickedness and deceit; He has ceased to consider to do good." (Psalm 36:3 LSB)
As Jesus taught, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Because the man's heart is filled with the wicked oracle of transgression, his mouth is filled with wickedness and deceit. His speech is a tool for manipulation, for slander, for falsehood, for tearing down. Deceit is the native language of the fallen heart. Why? Because the heart is trying to maintain the fiction of its own goodness. Deceit is necessary to keep the flattery going. He has to lie to others because he is, first and foremost, lying to himself.
And notice the progression: "He has ceased to consider to do good." It is not just that he fails to do good. It is that the very category of objective, God-defined goodness has been erased from his mind. He no longer has the mental furniture to think wisely. He has stopped asking, "What is the right thing to do?" and replaced it with "What do I want to do?" or "What can I get away with?" He has seared his conscience. The moral compass is not just broken; he has thrown it overboard.
The Devotion of the Damned (v. 4)
The psalm concludes this section with a picture of the wicked man's perverse devotion. He is not passive in his sin; he is an active, diligent worshipper at the altar of self.
"He devises wickedness upon his bed; He sets himself on a path that is not good; He does not despise evil." (Psalm 36:4 LSB)
The righteous man is told to meditate on God's law day and night. The godly man lies on his bed and remembers God. What does the ungodly man do? "He devises wickedness upon his bed." His quiet moments are not spent in communion with God but in plotting sin. He is an architect of rebellion. This is premeditated, thought-out, deliberate transgression. His sin is not an accident; it is a project.
He then acts on his plans: "He sets himself on a path that is not good." This is a determined choice. He plants his feet firmly on the broad road that leads to destruction. He is not stumbling in the dark; he has chosen the darkness. He is resolute in his rebellion.
And the final, damning diagnosis is this: "He does not despise evil." This is the bottom of the spiral. He has moved from committing evil to planning evil to, finally, approving of evil. He no longer has any moral revulsion to it. What God hates, he tolerates. What God finds abominable, he finds amusing or, worse, attractive. His moral taste buds have been so corrupted that he can no longer distinguish the taste of poison from the taste of bread. He has called evil good and good evil, and he has done it for so long that he now believes it.
The Only Escape
This is a grim portrait. It is the anatomy of a soul in revolt. It is a closed system of self-deception, spiraling downward into ruin. How can anyone escape such a prison? The man cannot break out on his own. His heart is a traitor, his eyes are blind, his mouth is corrupt, and his mind is bent on destruction.
The only escape is an invasion. The only cure is a resurrection. This is why the gospel is such glorious news. God does not offer advice to the man in this condition. He performs an operation. He must silence the lying oracle of transgression in the heart. And He does this by speaking a more powerful word, the Word of the gospel.
Just as God said, "Let there be light" into the formless void, so He says it into the chaotic heart of the sinner. "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6). The gospel is a creative fiat.
When that light shines, it does two things. First, it exposes our iniquity for what it is. For the first time, we see it and we hate it. This is repentance. Second, it installs a new and true dread of God. We see His holiness and our sinfulness, and we are undone. But this is not the craven fear of the damned; it is the clean, glad fear of the forgiven, because the light that exposes our sin is the light that shines from the face of a crucified and risen Savior. There is forgiveness with God, that He may be feared (Psalm 130:4). We are delivered from the fear of punishment into the glorious, joyful fear of the Lord. He replaces the prophet of transgression with the indwelling Holy Spirit, and He tunes our hearts to sing His praise.