Psalm 12: A Psalm of Lament

Psalm 12:1-8

The words of the Lord are trustworthy and in distress, this is where God’s people turn

Transcript

Psalm 12 says this, Save, O Lord, for the godly one is gone, For the faithful
have vanished from among the children of man. Everyone utters lies to his
neighbor, With flattering lips and a double heart they speak. May the Lord cut
off all flattering lips, The tongue that makes great boasts, Those who say, With
our tongue we will prevail, Our lips are with us, Who is master over us? 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. The words of the Lord
are pure words, Like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, Purified seven
times. You, O Lord, will keep them, You will guard us from this generation
forever, On every side the wicked prowl, As vileness is exalted among the
children of man. Let's take a moment and we'll pray. Lord God, we thank you for
your word, And I pray in this moment that you, by your spirit, Would work
through it and help me to explain and apply. Lord, we pray that this text would
point us towards Christ, And that even in times of distress we would trust in
your word. I pray that in your name. Amen. Okay, so this month of August, We are
going to be working through a selection of Psalms. There are 150 Psalms in the
Bible, It's hard to do sermon series through the Psalms consecutively. But in
that big group of 150, We have several categories. There are Psalms of praise
and thanksgiving. There are royal Psalms which anticipate Christ. There are
Psalms of remembrance, Looking back on what God has done. There are Psalms of
lament. There are imprecatory Psalms, Which are Psalms of prayer against the
wicked. So during this last month of the summer, We will be working through kind
of a sampler platter Of stand-alone Psalms preaching one from each of those
specific categories. In this Psalm, Psalm 12 is a Psalm of lament. And we're
starting with lament because lament is actually the largest portion of the
Psalms. One of the beautiful things about the Psalms is that they cover such a
broad emotional spectrum. In some Psalms, we're at just the height or pinnacle
of joy and thanksgiving and praise to God. And in other Psalms, we're at the
bottom in the depths. There are Psalms where we orient ourselves to God, And we
praise Him for who He is and what He has done and what His character is. And we
acknowledge Him as Creator. There are other Psalms where we more reorient
ourselves to God, When we call to mind the things that He has done in the past
and we rehearse His deeds. The Psalms of lament are what some have called Psalms
of disorientation. They're Psalms of bewilderment, where we don't know exactly
what is going on, Either sometimes in our own hearts or sometimes in the
circumstances around us. The Psalms of lament are when God's people don't
actually know where to turn. And they look to God in prayer, having nowhere else
to go. In the Psalms of lament, you'll see, which are scattered throughout the
Psalter, You'll see three kinds of complaints or laments expressed. So the
Psalmist, the Psalm writer, he may lament the condition of his own soul. He
might be expressing his own internal distress. Or the Psalmist may be lamenting
the circumstances around him, What his enemies are doing, what he's observing in
the world at large. Or the Psalmist may be frustrated at God himself, at what he
perceives God is doing or sometimes not doing. In lament, like the one that
we're about to get into, it can be hard to know exactly who the enemies are.
Who, like, what exactly is the historical framework for what we're talking
about? What are the circumstances that brought about the specific lament?
Sometimes we can correlate a psalm with a specific Old Testament story,
oftentimes not. And that's intentional. There obviously was a historical context
for the psalm. There's a reason why it was written. But at the same time, the
laments are also evergreen. They're meant to be sung and prayed by God's people,
not just for one specific time that passed away, but in an ongoing way, in times
of distress and in times of disorientation. In fact, at the end of this, we will
sing from Psalm 12 together. So you might be disoriented yourself this morning,
whether that's your own emotional or internal turmoil, or whether you're anxious
or concerned about circumstances going on around you, or you may be confused or
bewildered about what God is doing or not doing in your life. If that's you,
then what's wonderful about the Psalms is that we're given language across the
spectrum of human experience to come to God in prayer and in song. The Psalms
are meant for you and I to pray. So let's begin looking at Psalm 12. There's
four brief movements in this psalm over the eight verses, four little sections.
And here's the big idea. The words of the Lord are trustworthy and in distress,
this is where God's people turn. The words of the Lord are trustworthy and in
distress, this is where God's people turn. But here's the lament. We start out
in verses one and two. Here's what's going on. It looks like the liars are
winning. Verses one and two. Save, O Lord, for the godly one is gone, for the
faithful have vanished from among the children of man. Everyone utters lies to
his neighbor. With flattering lips and a double heart, they speak. This is a
lament coming from the people of God and here's what they're saying. Save us,
Lord, because the liars are winning. Lament is what you do when you can only
turn to God. So God's people are praying, save us, Lord. There are liars,
dishonest people who are in positions of authority and they're abusing their
power by means of dishonesty, lies, hypocrisy. It seems like the liars, in fact,
are not only winning, but they're the only ones left. The godly are gone. The
faithful have vanished. Everyone's fallen into corruption. Now this is more of a
statement about how it feels than a literal statement of fact. The godly ones
are not literally gone. The faithful have not entirely vanished. But this is how
it feels to those who are disoriented. People are lamenting, where are the godly
ones? Everyone, it seems like, is lying, is flattering, is speaking with a
double heart. And the psalm also speaks of the faithful ones that have vanished.
In other words, the situation is worse than it used to be. So it's not just
mourning about the dishonesty of the powerful, but also mourning about those who
have fallen and even switched sides. There's very little that is as disorienting
as seeing someone that you trusted, that you formally trusted or respected, fall
away. When that person falls away, when that person proves to be a hypocrite,
when then those who trusted him or her are left to reflect back and wonder, what
was even real? That can lead to a place where you don't trust anyone, where it
seems like nobody can be trusted. And we don't, I probably don't need to tell
you this, we don't need to look very far in our own culture to see how
prevailing this pattern of untruthfulness is, this atmosphere of untruthfulness.
Certainly we could look at various places. We could look at politicians where
dishonesty is basically accepted as kind of a fact of life. We could look at
popular media where grabbing attention or getting engagement or getting clicks
or selling headlines is far more important than reporting actual facts. But we
also see that much closer to home in our own interpersonal relationships.
There's a famous quote that you might have heard before from a man named George
Shultz who is a former US Secretary of the Cabinet, or US Cabinet Secretary. And
Shultz used to say, trust is the coin of the realm. Trust is the coin of the
realm. And what he meant by that is honesty is the foundation of trust. And
dishonesty, on the flip side, is the root cause of distrust. And Shultz
reflected at the end of his distinguished career and said, when trust was in the
room, whatever room that was, the family room, the school room, the coaches
room, the office room, the government room, the military room, good things
happened. When trust was not in the room, good things did not happen. Without
trust, you could think about this in your family, you could think about this at
work, relationships bogged down. Communication becomes very difficult. It
becomes complicated. We become suspicious. It's hard to get much done. It's hard
to stay unified. We've all experienced this. What do we do when there is no
trust and when it seems like dishonesty is winning the day? With a likely
context for this lament, it was sung by King David as he was hiding from King
Saul. And think for a minute about David's life. David was anointed by the
prophet Samuel to be the future king of Israel. He began to serve and to bless
the present king, King Saul. He defeated Goliath and gave his people a huge
victory over their bitter enemies, the Philistines. And he continued to serve
King Saul with perfect loyalty, waiting for his time when what the prophet
Samuel had prophesied would come to pass. But Saul became jealous of David and
threatened his life. David became a fugitive. He had to leave the king's house,
leave his family, leave his closest friend Jonathan, was separated from his
wife, and powerful people were plotting against him. As a fugitive, David was
given food by an Israelite priest to sustain him for his travels. But that
interaction was observed by a man named Doeg, who informed Saul that David had
passed through and was given food by a Bimalik the priest. So we know David is
the author of Psalm 12, and the situation that is most likely the context behind
Psalm 12 is that Saul has learned, I'm sorry, that David has learned, Saul is
continuing to hunt him down, and he has seen to it that a Bimalik and his fellow
priests have been murdered. David was anointed by Samuel, but he did not have a
linear journey from shepherd to king. He was betrayed. He experienced
dishonesty, hypocrisy, betrayal. He was let down by leaders. His trust was
violated. So what do God's people do when they experience this lying and misuse
of power? Look at verses three and four. They pray. This is the prayer of the
faithful. May the Lord cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that makes great
boasts, those who say, with our tongue we will prevail, our lips are with us,
who is master over us? You can hear that just proud defiance of the liars.
There's no fear of God. This is really, this is a picture of our society. There
are powerful people who live like this all the time. Their personal creed might
as well be, with our tongues we will prevail. In other words, we will use words
to bend reality under our control, and no one's going to stop us. And whether
they state it like that or not, whether they know the biblical language behind
this, that is the way of life for many people and many corporations. And when we
see it, when we see it, and there's not much we can do about it, it's
infuriating to observe. And when we see it, we feel powerless. We've probably
all experienced this at certain times, the injustice of untruthfulness. It could
be lies about us that we're not able to clear, or it could be something that
damages our reputation, or it could be something that we observe in the culture
at large. And when this happens, it's very easy to become angry, and even
obsessed, and consumed. You've probably seen this, or you've experienced it
yourself. But look at what God's people do when they see this swirl of injustice
and dishonesty. They pray. They pray in verses three and four. So let me ask
you, what is your first response when you observe the lying that goes on around
you? In this psalm, we see that God's people trust the Lord to judge the liars.
May the Lord cut off all the flattering lips, the tongue that makes great
boasts. And what happens? Look at the third movement here in verses five and
six. The Lord hears, and the Lord responds. Now we're moving to this third
movement. There's the problem, the lament at the beginning. The liars are
winning the day, and the faithful are vanishing. Then there's the prayer to God
that he would take action. May the Lord cut off the flattering lips. And here's
in the third movement, we see something beautiful. The Lord is not indifferent.
The Lord responds. We hear the actual voice of the Lord here in verse five.
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. The Lord acts in
response to the faithful. He's not detached or disconnected from what's going
on. It's interesting in verse four, the wicked say, who is master over us? Then
there's kind of an ironic answer in verse five. Actually, it turns out the
wicked have a master. It is the Lord God, and he sees what's going on. He's
going to take action. He's going to take action on behalf of the ones who are
being taken advantage of. The Psalm references the poor and the needy. They're
the ones who are most powerless, the ones who are most vulnerable to dishonesty,
the ones who are most victimized. The Israelites had the Old Testament. It's
very clear in the Old Testament about the responsibilities that God's people had
to the poor and to the needy. I'll give you a couple examples. Deuteronomy 15
says, 1511 says, there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore, I
command you, you shall open wide your hand to your brother to the needy and to
the poor in your land. Later on in Deuteronomy 24, 14, the people are told, you
shall not oppress a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether he is one of
your brothers or one of the sojourners who are in your hand within your towns.
So in this Psalm, we see something that should be very instructive to us. First,
there is this incredibly frustrating thing that's going on. Dist honest people
are controlling the narrative and they are getting away with it. And secondly,
weaker people are being taken advantage of. And it doesn't really seem like
anything can be done to bring about justice or truthfulness. But then God's
people pray and God acts. And the point of this is not that in all these cases
of injustice, that social action is unnecessary. That's not really my point.
Prayer is not a pious cop out to avoid responsibility to love your neighbor. But
the point is that the most fundamental thing that God's people do when they see
dishonesty and injustice is that they pray. And God makes a promise that he will
act. He will place the poor and needy in safety that they're longing for. You
might wonder, how's that going to happen? What is God going to do to make that
happen? Well, the Psalm's not specific about how that's going to play out. But
the certainty that God will keep his promise is seen in verse 6. There's a
tremendous contrast now with the words that are going on out there that the
liars are speaking and then the words of the Lord. Verse 6, the words of the
Lord are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified
seven times. This is a statement about the truthfulness of God's word. And it's
being set in contrast with the way of this world. The words of the Lord are pure
and absolutely reliable. They're free from error. They've been tested and
refined and have come out pure. That phrase, like silver refined in a furnace on
the ground, refers to an ancient purifying process for silver. All the
impurities were removed. The furnace would be on the ground or made of earth and
clay. When silver was collected, it would need to go through a purifying process
where exposure to heat removed dirt and all the other impurities that would be
part of the gathering process. And in the Bible, seven is a number symbolizing
perfection. So the idea here is that the words of the Lord are pure, absolutely
free from imperfection or impurity. And in distress, God's people can trust and
know that God's words are absolutely trustworthy. Nobody else's words can stand
this type of scrutiny. Think about when you watch a speech from a politician or
an activist or maybe you watch an advertisement on YouTube or on TV. How often
do you see statistics quoted and you wonder, is that really true? Is that
possible? Is that possibly true? And then if you're like me, you think, even if
that is technically true, how much more context and information would I need to
be able to figure out if the information that's being presented to me is
actually being presented accurately? Or how many conversations do you have with
people where you think they tell you the truth? They're telling you the truth,
but you also wonder, how much are they not telling me? How do I really know for
sure? The truth is hard to figure out. I'm in the middle of reading The Odyssey
because I've never actually read it, and I want to do that before I go watch the
new movie. So I figured I'll read the story. It's supposed to be one of the
great tales of epic tales of Western civilization. Then I'll see how the movie
compares. I want to know the real story, and then I'll compare it to the movie.
It turns out it's not really that simple. So here's what I mean. For example,
The Odyssey was written in another language. It was written in Greek, except
that it wasn't really written. It was communicated orally. These were stories
that were told in homes or around campfires or in various different forms and
versions for hundreds of years before Homer wrote them down. Then it turns out
Homer might not be a real person. That that might just be a name that we give
for any number of people who try to write these things down. And then whatever
was composed has gone through various versions and forms and reworked for modern
readers so that whatever I'm reading in English right now that was published in
2018 is being praised as a wonderful adaptation of The Odyssey. So if you go see
the movie, it'll probably be great, but how much does what Christopher Nolan and
Matt Damon and Anne Hathaway put together have to do with the original stories
that were being told around the campfire, around the dinner table by the Greeks
3,000 years ago? Probably not much. We don't really know what the real story of
The Odyssey is. And even if we could sit down with the Greeks around the
campfire in the year 1000 BC, they would tell those stories and then probably
say, well, these are just actually myths. None of this really happened. But it's
hard to actually know the truth. And you might be thinking, that's interesting,
Matt. Isn't a lot of what you said actually true about the Bible as well? It was
passed down orally in some cases and originally composed in other languages.
That is actually an interesting area of study where scholars who compared
ancient editions of The Odyssey or the Iliad with ancient biblical manuscripts.
And what they found is that there's far more scriptural manuscripts written much
earlier with much more consistency. If you research that, it will actually
strengthen your faith in the reliability of scripture. But the point is this.
There are many things we do not know for sure. And we live in a world where
lying is the coin of the realm. But the words of the Lord are absolutely
trustworthy. And in distress, this is where God's people turn. When he commented
on this chapter, the great preacher Charles Spurgeon said, the Bible has passed
through the furnace of persecution, literary criticism, philosophic doubt, and
scientific discovery, and has lost nothing. And when we think about the
reliability and perfection of scripture, this is not just kind of an abstract
concept or an abstract doctrine, but something that we cling to in distress.
Proverbs 30, verse five says, every word of God proves true. He is a shield to
those who take refuge in him. The Lord and his word are trustworthy. So this is
how the lament ends. It ends with confidence. God is going to protect his own.
Look at verses seven through eight. You, oh Lord, will keep them. You will guard
us from this generation forever on every side, the wicked prowl, as vileness is
exalted among the children of man. The lament now concludes with confidence.
You, oh Lord, will keep them. Yes, we live in an atmosphere and an ethos of
untruthfulness. And yes, we are surrounded by people who lie and have no fear of
God. And yet we pray and we know that God will act and we have the assurance
that God's words are absolutely trustworthy. And one of the great things about
the Psalms and the Bible in general is that it is absolutely realistic about the
human condition. You'll notice that as we read this, we're not going to be able
to read the Bible. But as the Psalm concludes, the situation has not changed on
every side. The wicked are still prowling and vileness is still being exalted
among the sons of men. Their situation, their surrounding culture did not
change. This continues to be the situation. It hasn't changed. This is where we
find ourselves. And yet there is a deep confidence in God that he will act, that
he does protect, that we will be guarded, and that his word can be depended on.
We don't just live when we think about ourselves today. We do not just simply
live in a culture full of lies and insincerity. We have an actual spiritual
enemy of our souls who Jesus described as a liar and the father of lies. In John
8, Jesus spoke to the Pharisees and said, you are of your father the devil and
your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning
and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he lies,
he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. So
we live in the midst of lies and have a spiritual enemy who is a liar. And yet
this Psalm tells us about the source of truth that can be depended on. That's
God's word as it is given to us in Scripture and it anticipates Jesus Christ.
The truth come down in the flesh. Think about what Jesus said in John 14. I am
the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through
me. Jesus experienced lying, betrayal, cynicism, hypocrisy, injustice. But on
the cross, he clung to the truth of God's word. He is the word of God. Come down
in the flesh. His life proves the reliability of the word of God and on the
cross and in his resurrection, he defeated Satan, the father of lies. He is able
to deliver us and the way to safety and the way to spiritual freedom is through
trust in Jesus Christ. His word can be depended on even in our distress,
especially in our distress. Let's pray. Let's pray. Lord God, we thank you that
you give us words to lament in our frustration. Lord, I pray that the Psalms
would be for us, not something things that we just read in a detached way, but
things that we pray and that we sing. That they would become our very words,
Lord, and that in our distress we would turn to you and trust in your words.
Lord Jesus, we thank you for your work on the cross on our behalf to deliver us.
In Jesus name. Amen.