Psalm 12 The God of Truth

Introduction

Have you ever felt all alone? Really Alone?

Often we don’t have to be on our own to feel alone- I remember walking down the streets of London, one of the world’s busiest cities, and feeling very alone as I wore the colours of the ‘wrong’ football team!

In Psalm 12 David feels all alone. He looked around and saw only enemies. In Psalm 11 the wicked were destroying the foundations of society. In Psalm 12 it seems like they have succeeded in wiping out the godly with their lies and deception.

As David looked around, he felt hopeless as a once godly society was collapsing under the weight of wickedness. As Believers today, we may well feel like David at times- like we are the only person standing for truth and living for God.

So, what should we do? David’s response in Psalm 12 is our example. David commits his holy concerns to prayer. And, by God’s grace, we can now listen to David’s prayer and learn from his godly example. In Psalm 12 David shows us:

The Problem that surrounds us

The Plea that we should make

The Promises that we should rest in

 

 

Psalm 12 teaches us that when we are surrounded by the lies of men, we must take refuge in the God of truth. Like our King Jesus, we must face the reality of trouble with prayerful trust in the truth and beauty of God’s promises. We stand for truth in the grace and strength that our God of truth provides.

Let us see this, firstly, as we learn of… The Problem that surrounds us.

Many of us are not very good at asking for help. But in reality, there are times when we will face situations we cannot handle on our own- times when we need to ask for help.

Our opening verses see David facing a situation he cannot handle on his own. So he cries out for help; in verse 1:

Save, O Lord, for the godly one is gone;
    for the faithful have vanished from among the children of man.

David looked around and felt that those faithful to the Word of God and living God’s Way had disappeared. David felt helpless and alone- surrounded by an increasingly evil society. So, David turned to God and pleaded for Him to intervene.

David could have retreated into hopelessness and isolated himself from the world. Indeed, we all know how tempting it can be to spend more time complaining about the sinfulness of the world than spending time with God in prayer. It is easier to get wound up by people’s opinions on social media than stirred up to talk with God. However, in David’s example we see it is better to look up to God and call out to Him for help.

 

 

Interestingly, when David cries out, ‘Save…’, he is using the Hebrew word that would one day provide the name ‘Jesus’. When we feel abandoned as we pursue faithfulness in a faithless world we must look to Christ. In Jesus, the Faithful and True King, we can confidently come before God and bring our heart cries. And it is because of His victory over sin and death that we have hope that evil will not ultimately prevail.

In verse 2 David identifies the problem that causes his cry of desperation:

² Everyone utters lies to his neighbour;
    with flattering lips and a double heart they speak.

David describes a culture obsessed with perverting and twisting the truth for their own ends.

In just a few lines David gives us a piercing portrait of the wicked- focusing us on the destructive impact of their words. From neighbourhood conversations to the halls of government, lying was systemic. And these empty and insincere words had a corrupting effect on human relationships. The fabric of society was torn apart because truth was undermined by lies, flattery and hypocrisy.

Can you imagine what that must have been like- to hear the news and not be able to trust if it is accurate? To listen to listen to government officials and wonder of what they were saying was true? To speak with people on the street and wonder if they were genuine? To go to a healthcare professional and wonder if you could trust they had your best interests at heart?

Well, we know what this is like because we live in such a world today. Everywhere we look there is mistrust as truth is undermined. People are suspicious. Society is cynical.

Deceit breeds distrust. Distrust leads to division. And we live in a divided society.

Sadly many in our day are using their words to manipulate others for their own ends- to control others for their own purposes. It is an uneasy and unsettling situation to say the least.

Notice, at the end of verse 2, that the heart of the matter is the matter of the heart. In the Hebrew way of thinking, the heart was the seat of thought, your true self. The double-hearted man of verse 2 is thinking two things at the same time: what he wants and what he needs to say to get what he wants. Truth takes a back seat to selfish ambition and self-centred desires.

I am sure we can think of numerous of examples of how this happens in our world today. However, lets pause for a moment and consider ourselves: are we ‘double-hearted’?

Do we have one heart for Sundays and another for working-days? Are we the same person at home or in the workplace as we are on Sunday morning? Let us be careful to check our heart and our tongue in these days; we must be people who know what is true, speak truth and live the truth even when it may cost us.

In verse 4 we see that empty talk, smooth talk and double talk is followed by arrogant talk:

⁴ those who say, “With our tongue we will prevail,
our lips are with us; who is master over us?”

David sees the wicked continue to defy God with their tongues. They reject God’s authority so that they might live their own way.

The aim of the wicked is control at any cost. So they will use their words to manipulate others- to kill and steal and destroy. They are filled with arrogance as they deny God’s way and exalt their own way.

In these opening verses we can feel the heaviness of David’s heart as he looks around at the wickedness in society. This is a society where truth is either optional or opinion; people use words to get what they want. This is a society that has become corrupted by its own self-deception.

It doesn’t take much imagination to see the connections with our contemporary context. We live in a world of fake news in the political sphere, conspiracy theories perpetuated by social media and opinion masquerading as fact on a whole range of social and moral issues. Truth is now a commodity to be sold or manipulated for economic or cultural gain.

In this context, how are Believers to respond?

We are to follow David’s example and remember… The Plea that we should make.

I wonder if you were struck by the words of verse 3:

³ May the Lord cut off all flattering lips,
    the tongue that makes great boasts…

After surveying the moral corruption and societal destruction caused by the wicked, David calls on God to take drastic measures.

David effectively asks God to put a stop to the destructive words of the wicked by putting an end to them. King David asks God to remove the wicked from amongst his people so they can no longer cause destruction with their words. David, having felt helpless against these destructive liars and schemers, finds his refuge in God who is sovereign.

We should not see here a personal plea for vengeance or a cry of individual spite. Instead, David desires that God would act justly in dealing with the wicked. David’s passion was for the triumph of divine justice, not the satisfaction of personal malice. This is a calculated petition, not a spontaneous explosion of a bad temper.

The psalms are expressions of public worship to be modelled. David is teaching God’s people that when faced by evil we should seek God’s Glory and the reign of His Kingdom here on earth. These words are a cry for God to deal with sin justly and to display His glory to a world in need of it.

And these are the cries of a faithful Follower of God who knows the about the destruction that lies and deception can cause. David here displays a passion for truth and righteousness because He loves the Lord and knows that His Way is good and beautiful.

Ultimately, David’s plea is provoked by the horror of sin. David sees clearly that sin deceives souls, destroys society and degrades fellow image bearers. In David’s plea we see his deep sensitivity to the ugliness of evil and a deep passion for God’s righteousness, God’s honour, God’s reputation, and the triumph of God’s Kingdom.

So, when we look around and see evil everywhere we are to look up to God. We are to go to God in prayer and seek His face, see Him as He truly is and gaze upon His Glory.

And we are to search our own hearts and confess the wickedness within us. If we are honest, we know that we have hurt and deceived others with our tongues. So where does that leave us?

 

Well, we must turn to Jesus- the only one who never sinned with His words. The Good News of the Gospel is that although you and I should be condemned for our words, our sins can be forgiven. This is why the Bible says in 1 Peter 2 verse 24:

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

When we come to Jesus, He turns us into faithful people who speak the truth from the heart. The Holy Spirit who lives inside us is called ‘…the Spirit of truth…’ (John 14). God’s truth now lives in us (2 John 2).

We need our guilt taken away and a new power inside us that is strong enough to control our tongue. We need to be forgiven through Jesus’ death and resurrection. We need the power of God’s Spirit inside us. We need to be saved.

And then we need to pray ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ and ask for God’s help to live holy lives as we remember… The Promises that we should rest in.

Perhaps up until this point David felt like someone who lives with three little boys: he was doing all the talking but nobody seemed to be doing any listening!

Often in the life of the Believer we feel as if God is deaf to our cries, inactive, maybe even indifferent. When we feel this way, we should consider verse 5:

⁵ “Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan,
    I will now arise,” says the Lord;
    “I will place him in the safety for which he longs.”

Here, for the first time in the Psalms we have a direct answer from God.

Here we see that God does hear, He does care, and He does take decisive, specific action on behalf of His People for His Glory. The language here pictures a warrior standing up to do battle as a champion for His People.

And here we are reminded of how God took action decisively through Jesus Christ and acted on behalf of His poor, plundered and needy people. As God’s People we must always remember how God has acted for us and that we really, truly needed Him to act!

The Psalmist reminds God’s People that God acts on their behalf and places them under His sovereign protection. However, verses 7 and 8 teach us that this does not mean that life will then be all plain sailing:

⁷ You, O Lord, will keep them;
    you will guard us from this generation forever.
⁸ On every side the wicked prowl,
    as vileness is exalted among the children of man.

David’s situation clearly hadn’t changed- the wicked still held the upper hand. However, David’s confidence was in the Lord’s protection- His ultimate protection.

Scripture clearly teaches that God will only ever work for our good and His Glory. Even if the worst happens, we know that God is in control and is using all things to bless. In fact, as painful as it is, the hardship we face are the best thing that could happen to us. This is the ultimate security anyone could hope for: God is for us.

God is for us; and God speaks with us; in verse 6 we see the most glorious contrast between the words of man and the Word of God:

⁶ The words of the Lord are pure words,
like silver refined in a furnace on the ground,
purified seven times.

In a beautiful expression of faith David speaks of God’s Word. In contrast to the wicked who speak falsely, God’s Word is flawless. Every word of God is precious and ‘pure’ and can be completely counted upon

David compares God’s Word to silver refined in a crucible seven times. Not the slightest impurity remains. This is a picture of the priceless perfection of God’s Word. This means that the word of God can be trusted in every sense. It is good, pure, and tested thoroughly.

We can trust that God has tested His own word. But it has also been tested by scholars, critics, and doubters through the centuries- and the Word of God still stands. It is like a mighty mountain that has endured all that nature could and would throw at it.

As God’s People we must have utter confidence in the fact that God’s Word is completely true and trustworthy. Spurgeon described the tested purity of God’s Word this way:

So clear and free from all alloy of error or unfaithfulness is the book of the words of the Lord. The Bible has passed through the furnace of persecution, literary criticism, philosophic doubt, and scientific discovery, and has lost nothing but those human interpretations which clung to it as alloy to precious ore. The experience of saints has tried it in every conceivable manner, but not a single doctrine or promise has been consumed in the most excessive heat.

When David heard God’s answer to his prayer, he marvelled at the brilliant perfection and purity of God’s Word. His faith continued as he stood on God’s promise and trusted Him to protect his life.

 

Remember that, as verse 8 indicates, nothing has ultimately changed in David’s circumstances. The wicked are still prowling as they were at the beginning of the psalm. But David has changed. He is not crying out to God for help anymore. He has heard God’s Word, and he believes it.

This was David’s confidence. It was the confidence of our Lord Jesus Christ as well as He walked alone in a world of lies and deceit. It needs to be our confidence too.

Conclusion

Psalm 12 teaches us much about how we are to live as Followers of Jesus in our day.

We are not to look around at what everyone else is doing- with either self-righteous pride or faithless dismay. Instead, we must focus our gaze upon God and His Word. In God alone do we find perfect, life-giving, eternal truth.

We are to study God’s Word and trust in its authority as the authentic voice of God. When the Bible speaks, God Himself speaks. In the face of moral decay all around we must be rooted in God’s Word and grounded by the Truth it contains. As we behold God’s glory and His grace we are enabled and encouraged to live holy lives in an ever-increasingly godless world.

And we obey God’s Word and put it into practice in our lives day by day. Our duty and delight as Believers is to walk in Truth and live for God in daily obedience and holiness.