A World Full of Lies
Notes
Transcript
Good morning, Gateway Chapel!
It’s great to see all of you and to see you still have all your appendages after the 4th.
We went crazy on the 4th, we got sparklers, we had pop-its…and that was it. Just unbelievable.
My name is Chris…
Connect cards…
Campout
By the Sea
Prayer
Ask The Lord to give you a higher perspective (His point-of-view) on our city. Pray that He will be glorified.
Pray for our mayor, Kathy Hayden, and our city council for wisdom, integrity, justice, and mercy in leading our city.
Pray for spiritual awakening, that God will lead people to relationship with Him.
Intro
Intro from last week
We are in the middle of a heat wave, and I find that as the heat increases, the pace of life increases, too.
There is no shortage of activity in the summer.
Weddings, house projects, hikes, parties, festivals, you name it, we do it.
It’s easy to feel frantic, hurried, bursting at the seams as we pack in the fun.
Last week I argued that one thing we all need this summer is more poetry.
That seems like an odd thing to say but poetry forces us to slow down.
We often live our lives like tourists who go to the Louve in Paris and see the Mona Lisa, look at it for 3 seconds and say, “Cool! What’s next?”
Poetry is written by those who are like the art conisseurs who sit and stare and ponder and consider what is truly significant about life.
“Reading verse rescues us from the mundaneness of life; it permits us to observe again with wonder, and shocks us out of our cynicism and joylessness. After a day in which we have been constantly distracted by electronic devices grasping for our attention, or numbed by a “to do” list that makes even our PDA sigh with despair, we read Robert Frost’s “Birches” and we are alive again - alive as humans, alert to beauty, to creation, to play.” Why Johnny Can’t Preach, T. David Gordon, 52
The Bible is roughly 1/3 poetry.
Rather than an instruction manual, God gave us many many many poems.
The greatest collection of poetry in the Bible is in the Psalms.
David and the other poets who wrote the Psalms are like people who do not merely glance at the goodness of God and the tragedies of life but they are conisseurs of God and life with him.
Last week we began in Psalm 11 not because I just spun a wheel and picked one, but several years ago we preached from Psalm 1-10 so we’re picking up where we left off.
And so today we’re in Psalm 12.
And in Psalm 12, David is asking, What do you do when it seems like only liars win?
What do we do when it seems like all the decent people have left the building?
What hope do we have when it seems like all the people in power aren’t good people, but simply people who are good at convincing people that they’re good?
What hope is there when throughout human history, while we can tame any nearly animal, we can ride a dolphin, we can tame the ocean and build bridges and tunnels under the sea, we can tame mountains and climb peaks, but no one can tame the tongue?
David wants us to see that in a world full of lies, God’s word prevails.
In a world full of lies, God’s word prevails.
There are 8 verses in Psalm 12 and it breaks down into four little pairs of verses.
We’ll see the reality in verses 1-2, the request in verses 3-4, the response in verses 5-6 and the promise in verses 7-8. I’m not fancy enough to come up with a fourth ‘r’ word so if you come up with one, let me know.
The reality, the request, the response, the promise.
The reality
1 Save, O Lord, for the godly one is gone;
for the faithful have vanished from among the children of man.
2 Everyone utters lies to his neighbor;
with flattering lips and a double heart they speak.
The reality that the Psalmist describes is that the world is full of lies.
Psalm 12 is what’s called a Psalm of lament.
It’s a cry for help.
Nearly 1/3 of the Bible is poetry and about 1/3 of the Psalms are laments.
Poetry reminds that to be human is less often about living your best life but more often about what do you do when it feels like you’re drowning?
Psalm 12 was written by David.
We don’t know exactly what situation he is responding to but he is broken because he’s overwhelmed by the liars in the world. It seems like the last good person has walked out.
Perhaps he’s reflecting on Saul’s wickedness or even his own son Absalom’s evil. He’s despairing over the apparent lack of integrity in the world.
The faithful godly people appear to have vanished.
David says the language of the day is lies.
No one speaks truth to each other.
We use words for deception.
This is the reality of the world we live in that everyone lies. No exceptions. From lying about your age, to lying about how you’re doing on a Sunday morning, to saying nice things to someone but in our hearts and behind their backs we cut them down with our words.
It’s the reason we say “Don’t trust what you read online.” It’s the reason you don’t just get one bid for a house project. It’s the reason someone invented the polygraph machine, it’s the reason people don’t trust pastors. People lie.
Notice the phrase “children of man” both in verse 1 and verse 8.
It’s a phrase used often in the Psalms to mean the whole human race. But what’s interesting is it’s used twice here.
Do you know the first time “children of man” appears in the Bible?
The tower of Babel.
You know the story?
One day, the whole world spoke the same language.
The reality at the time of Babel was that there was hardly a godly person on the planet. The faithful ones had vanished.
The world has one language and they use their words to come together and build a city to honor themselves and oppose God.
And God knows that while their words sound good - what’s wrong with a city and a big tower? He knows that apart from him they will only build something monstrous.
5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built.
God’s word made the universe in all its goodness. But apart from him we use our own words and create a world of lies.
The reality then in Genesis 11 and in Psalm 12 and for us today is that the world is full of lies.
Isn’t that the sad truth?
From fake news to promoted products on Amazon that are absolutely horrible and no one should buy, to saying nice things to people but really meaning another. Maybe you’ve been burned by lies. Maybe you’ve hurt others with your lies. I know I’ve done it.
Since the beginning of human history, we’ve made immense progress in technology, health, philosophy, and understanding the cosmos, but we can’t keep from lying.
We can’t trust words.
So much so that we deny truth even exists. Your words are your truth. We’re so consumed by lying words that it seems like no capital T truth words can really exist.
Application - consider the reality of this, call on God to save you!
Transition - In verses 1 and David is saying, this is the reality! So what does he do about it? He makes a request.
The request
3 May the Lord cut off all flattering lips,
the tongue that makes great boasts,
4 those who say, “With our tongue we will prevail,
our lips are with us; who is master over us?”
The request David makes, much like last week, is rather gruesome.
God, take your sword and slice off their lips!
Remove their lying tongues.
But just like the reality of the situation in verse 2, it’s about more than words because our words reveal our hearts.
In verse 4 it says these liars are those who say, “I can sell ice to an eskimo, who can stop me?”
“I’m the boss! I can say what I want, do what I want, and stomp on whoever I want because I can use my words to get my way.”
We may say that money makes the world goes round but if you have a corner on words you can’t make the world spin whatever way you want.
Lips and tongues are such small and yet such powerful things.
4 Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.
How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! 6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell.
Thinking back to Babel,
isn’t it interesting that God doesn’t destroy the tower, he doesn’t take away the technology of the brick, but he scrambles their words. Twists their tongues.
He makes it so they can’t understand what their lips are trying to say.
David cries out to God for help.
David says the reality is the world is not neutral but it’s full of deceit, he makes his request that God do something about it. So what does God do?
The response
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.”
6 The words of the Lord are pure words,
like silver refined in a furnace on the ground,
purified seven times.
God’s response does come.
Not because he’s offended or because someone prayed the magic words, but it says because in a world of lies and people who grab power by their words, God cares about those who have no voice.
And when they can’t even speak but all they can do is groan, that’s when God acts.
God’s voice comes in response to those who can barely even croak out a sound.
It’s not every Psalm that we hear God speak but something about this Psalm and the issue of God’s response to a world of lies and the request of his people to act generates a response.
Consider the story of Babel again
4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”
In some sense, They’re trying to build a utopia!
And what do we know about what happens when humans try to build paradise? Try to create a little bubble free from deceit, lies, imperfection, and make everything go perfectly.
It doesn’t go so well. It doesn’t go well for those on the margins. It doesn’t go well for those whom the leaders fear. It doesn’t go well for the poor.
God saw what was coming down the pike from Babel. His action is to speak and to give safety for the poor. What an amazing God.
David reflects that God’s response - his words - are flawless.
They’re beyond pure. Like the most perfectly forged sword.
30 This God—his way is perfect;
the word of the Lord proves true;
he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.
8 the precepts of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is pure,
enlightening the eyes;
5 Every word of God proves true;
he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.
In the same way that you can tell something about people by their words, you can learn about God through his word and his word is flawless. God is pure.
What God says isn’t just right it is good.
The words of people are like the metal on a rusty old station wagon. God’s words are like a majestic sword.
The words of people are like fireworks…beautiful for a moment but in a little while they’re stinky and they vanish. God’s word is like the sun. Holy, powerful, life giving.
In a world full of lies, God’s word prevails.
Isn’t that convenient, you might say. The Bible saying that God’s word is pure.
Why should we trust what the Bible says?
How do we know that? How can we be sure?
When did God respond to help the poor and needy?
In a world full of lies, how can we know that God isn’t just another one of the liars?
Or is God like one of those dads who says, “Yeah I’ll take you fishing” but leaves the kid waiting on the sidewalk until his heart breaks, or the boss who says, “We’ve got a promotion coming for you” but it never comes or the friend who says, “You can trust me” and stabs you in the back or the politician who says, “We’re going to bring jobs back to the city!” but only uses those words to win votes and nothing more.
Because in Jesus we see God’s word prevails.
The story of the world is a war of words.
By God’s word he made the world. God spoke and from his lips came existence.
Satan spoke and from his lips came lies. God’s motives are not pure, he says. Your life would better without him!
It’s because Adam and Eve bought the lie that we live in a world full of lies today.
We became like Satan - uttering lies to our neighbors. People with forked tongues.
And yet God promised way back at the beginning - he made a plan even before the beginning - mark my words, I’m going to crush the Father of lies.
I promise that I’m going to send a person of truth to cut off his lips so he can never deceive again.
God’s response to the groans of the children of man led him to send Jesus.
In Jesus, we see that God’s word is pure.
In Jesus we see that God is the only being who’s person and message matched perfectly. What he said matched who he is.
In him there is no deceit. He is light and in him there is no darkness.
In Jesus, God’s word prevailed on the cross.
On the cross, it looked like God’s word had failed.
If Satan had twitter when Jesus died, you can bet he would have been gloating like no one has ever gloated before. Who is master over me? I beat God!
It seemed on Good Friday and on Saturday that the godly one had vanished. It appeared that the faithful had truly left for good. It looked like lies had won the day once and for all. It appeared that God’s promise had failed and that his word isn’t to be trusted.
But then on Easter Sunday, God said, “Now I will arise.”
And as Jesus rose, we see that in a world full of lies, God’s word prevails and he makes a way for liars like me and like you to be forgiven and made from children of men into children of God.
Do you believe that?
Have you used your words to put your trust in Jesus?
Are you filling yourself with God’s words to arm yourself against the lies of Satan?
The reality is the world is full of lies, David requests God’s deliverance and God responds in Psalm 12 and ultimately in Jesus. But what does this mean for us? We see a promise in verses 7-8
The promise
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.
This is the promise of God.
That in a world full of lies, he will protect those who hold fast to truth.
Even though we are surrounded by lies, God is protecting his people.
David reflects on the promise of God to protect his people forever.
In May we raised support for Pastor Alfonso in South Africa and the cohort of pastors he leads.
And we got these prayer cards from Alfonso asking us to pray that the gospel would spread in South Africa in a context in which the prosperity gospel is spreading.
The prosperity gospel is this lie that if you trust Jesus you will get rich and God will make you happier in this life than you could ever imagine.
It’s a lie from Satan that the good news is you get prosperity, rather than the good news is you get Jesus.
How can pastor Alfonso have hope that his church of about 40 people on Sundays can withstand the lies?
Because God will guard and keep his people forever even in a world full of lies.
And that’s why we support Pastor Alfonso because he is our brother, his church is our brothers and sisters who are doing what we’re trying to do, be faithful godly people who learn from the truth.
Who give hope in a world where you can’t take people at their word, you can’t trust what you read online, you don’t know when people are lying…that there is a God of truth who sent Jesus to prevail over the lies.
And he gave us Scripture as his ultimate truth to keep and guard us.
We need Scripture to guard us against the lies.
The lies that Satan is telling to us as a culture.
The lie that the material world is all there is. What we can see and observe physically is the greatest reality. It’s a lie.
The lie that the individual is supreme. I am my own master! It’s a lie! We’re creatures made to serve a good creator.
The lie that what I feel about something is the ultimate truth. My emotions are determinative. If I feel it’s bad, then it is bad. It’s a lie!
God gives us Scripture not just for a few verses to memorize as truth but to saturate ourselves in the story of it and the poetry of it and become people of truth.
The lies that Satan tell us about God.
That he’s not really good.
He’s not really good and he won’t really bless you unless you work really hard. He’s not really happy with what you’ve got going on right now so you need to read your Bible more, pray more, serve better, get a higher streak of days reading on your Bible app…it’s a lie. God is a God of grace who helps those who cannot help themselves.
He’s not really good and he loves you but some stuff he says in the Bible about ethics and morality eh take it or leave it. He’s good because he died for you but he’s got some outdated beliefs. You can’t trust his word. It’s a lie! God’s word is pure in a world full of deceit we need God’s word to guide us.
The lies that Satan tells us about ourselves.
God doesn’t really love you.
You’re trash.
If people really knew you, they wouldn’t love you.
God DOES love you. He gave all of himself for you.
You are made in the image of God and if you are in Christ you are light in the Lord.
Everyone feels shame, everyone has lied, the more we know each other the more we’ll be able to love each other.
What lies are you believing and how might God want to protect you through his Word?
What lies are you believing and how might God want to protect you through his Word?e
Are you believing a lie that God isn’t really
In a world full of lies, God’s word prevails.
The sad truth is that everyone lies. No one tells the whole truth, nothing but the truth.
David teaches us to run to God to ask for help. Why?
Because he will respond. And we see that ultimately in Jesus that God’s pure word prevailed against the Father of lies and he invites liars like you and me to become children of God.
And even in a society of deceit God gives us his spirit and his word to guard and keep us forever until he takes us home to be in the new creation where there will be no more crying and no more lying anymore.