Sermon Tone Analysis

Announcements

Don’t forget that this is our last Wednesday evening Bible Study & Prayer time for 2021.

The last two weeks of 2021 has special services for the holidays instead of our typical Wednesday evening service.

On December 24th, join us for our Christmas Eve Carols & Lessons at 7pm in the Auditorium.

Following the service we’ll have a dessert social in the Activity Room.

On December 31st, join us for our New Year’s Eve Celebration—it isn’t so much a service, as it’s really just a fellowship opportunity to enjoy food, enjoy each other’s company and ring in the new year.

Please be aware on January 2nd, after the Sunday AM Worship Service, we’ll have a quarterly business meeting.

Let me remind you to continue worshiping the LORD through your giving.

To help you give, we have three ways for you to do so (1) in-person giving can be done at the offering box, debit, credit, and ACH transfers can be done either by texting 84321 with your $[amount] or by visiting www.gapb.church

and selecting “Giving” in the Menu bar.

Everything you give goes to the building up of our local church and the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Prayer of Repentance and Adoration

Sermon (Psalm 12)

Introduction

If you have your Bible with you this evening, please turn it to Psalm 12.

This evening’s message continues our series in the book of psalms.

And we’re studying Psalm 12, which is a shorter psalm that’s written by David.

We aren’t sure when this psalm was written, but much like David’s previous psalms, the general nature of this psalm allows us to apply it to us more broadly.

We know that this was originally written to be sung, we see that in the superscription of the text “To the choirmaster: according to the Sheminith.

A Psalm of David.”

It was apparently written during a time in which David felt opposition from those that not only opposed him but that rejected God.

And they utilized their tongues or their voice to lie to and manipulate people.

There is a strong sense of oppression of the poor and needy in this text, which is important for us to be aware of as well.

Let’s take a moment to read Psalm 12 together and then we’ll dig into the passage.

As we study this passage together, we’re going to break it into two parts, though arguably, the two parts almost run together.

(1) Vs. 1-4 is a Prayer for Deliverance and (2) Vs.

5-8 starts with assurance that God will deliver and ends with Confidence in God’s Word.

Both sections of this passage speak of a situation in David’s life in which it seemed as if all the people who trusted in the LORD had disappeared and the evidence of that is seen in how the people utilized their tongues to lie and trick each other.

The first section focuses on describing these people, whereas the second section focuses on David’s confidence in God, God’s Word, and the eventual judgment of the wicked.

In our understanding of the passage this evening, we’ll view David’s words from his perspective and consider our own world in which people do precisely the same wickedness and we’ll hopefully be encouraged and exhorted to place our own confidence in God’s Word.

Prayer for Illumination

Prayer for Deliverance (1-4)

Psalm 12 is a psalm of David and in Psalm 12, David starts with these words, “Save, O LORD, for the godly one is gone; for the faithful have vanished from among the children of man.”

That word that’s translated as save can also be translated as help with the idea that David is crying out for God to come and save him.

In particular, the word here carries the connotation of saving someone from ruin, destruction, or harm.

So, David has a very real sense that his life was in danger or that he is facing imminent destruction.

And that very real sense of danger or destruction is primarily due to what David says is a lack of godly and faithful people.

Now I will say that this is hyperbolic in some sense.

David is exaggerating at least a little bit, because we’re told elsewhere in Scripture (like Isaiah 10) that there’s always a remnant that genuinely believes; however, what David is telling us is that there is truly just a remnant of believers during the time of his writing of this psalm.

For the vast majority of people within his context were godless and faithless.

Now, like I mentioned in the introduction, we aren’t particularly sure when this psalm was written, but I’m certain that we can all think of times in which we’ve faced similar situations in our own lives.

We all have experienced situations in which we genuinely have a difficult time finding likeminded believers who seek to follow the LORD wholeheartedly—this could happen at work, or it could happen in school, and unfortunately, it can happen at the local church level (that is part of the reason why Natalie and I endeavored to plant Grace & Peace).

And in that difficulty of trying to find likeminded believers, we can experience opposition from those that reject Jesus—that opposition can come in a similar way to the opposition that David shows us as he continues in this passage.

And it is this opposition from godless and faithless people that causes David to cry out to the LORD.

David is praying to the LORD and he brings forth a complaint that there are no godly people left, that the faithful have vanished.

And then in Vs. 2-4, he then describes what the people who are left are like—and its in these verses that we get a description of these people that focuses on their speech and by focusing on their speech it reveals to us their hearts.

Vs. 2, starts with “Everyone utters lies to his neighbors; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak.”

In Vs. 2, David describes these people based on the way that they speak to one another and the description isn’t good, it’s filled with sinfulness.

The idea of everyone uttering lies to his neighbor goes further than them not just telling the truth to one another.

The word translated as lies carries the connotation of vain or empty words.

So, it isn’t just lying to one another, it is the idea of lying along with being insincere or irresponsible—it is the concept of lying with malicious intent for the purpose of the liar achieving gain.

“With flattering lips” refers to the idea of someone who is a smooth talker.

Think of the Professor Harold Hill from the Music Man or maybe even Worldly Wiseman from Pilgrim’s Progress who attempt to trick people through their words to intentionally deceive them for their own gain.

With “a double heart” speaks of their own condition.

There’s an old adage that if you lie enough, you’ll begin to believe your own lies.

And what Vs. 2 is describing is a group of people who are godless and faithless who intentionally deceive and manipulate other people enough that they believe their own lies—I think we can all picture people that we know of in our own lives like this, that reject the truth, deceive and manipulate people, and believe their own lies.

In Vs. 3, David interjects a request to the LORD while continuing the prayer for deliverance.

“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?” David both asks God to do something about these people while continuing to describe these people.

The description of the people continues with them making great boasts with their tongues.

They make the statement, “with our tongue we will prevail, our lips are with us; who is master over us?”

This sounds unusual to us today because we typically don’t speak in the same way, but let me explain it like this:

These people are making the boast that they will prevail and that no one will be master over them.

In many ways, this is the same idea of what happened with the Tower of Babel.

In Genesis 11:4, its revealed to us that the reasoning for the building of the tower was so that the people could make for themselves and essentially elevate themselves above the LORD.

What these godless and faithless people in Psalm 12 are saying is that there is no one over us, we are our own people and we will prevail through the power of our tongues and lips.

They’re boasting in their own arrogance—they think they are great and mighty and so they proclaim themselves to be great and mighty

Which is what prompts David to pray for the LORD to “cut off all flattering lips” to cut off the tongue that makes great boasts.

This is a metaphorical request from David for the LORD to cut off their lips and tongues, what he means by this prayer is two-fold:

He asks God to cut off their lips and tongues, which essentially means that he wants God to stop their boasting, which they clearly think no one can stop them

And he asks God to do this because he knows that despite their great boasting, God is still perfectly able and capable to stop them from boasting and making false statements like this.

So, David describes his situation as one in which he is surrounded with people who reject God and speak nothing but lies in such a way to manipulate and hurt other people.

He’s found himself in such a situation that he feels alone and he fears for his own life, but even in the midst of such a despairing description, he can’t help but to express just a hint of hope and trust in the LORD.

That bit of hope and trust in God compels him to make his second request, for the godless and faithless people to be quieted; his first being a request for help from the LORD.

In the remaining few verses, we hear from God himself, which then changes David from expressing discomfort and fear to confidence in God’s Word.

Let’s re-read Vs. 5-8:

Confidence in God’s Word (5-8)

God’s response to David’s prayer is found in vs. 5, “Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan, I will now arise;” “I will place him in the safety for which he longs.”

God responds to David’s prayer by making the statement that he will arise because the poor are plundered and because the needy groan.

And in doing so, he’s really putting his focus on one group of people described in two different ways.

We can really describe this group of people with one word—oppressed.

Let me be clear, that the issue at hand isn’t that the people are poor and needy, though God does encourage and exhort the church to care for those that struggle both with finances and health, but that isn’t the emphasis here.

God isn’t responding in this situation just because there are people who are struggling financially and are needy—no where in Scripture are we told that we won’t struggle financially and we won’t ever find ourselves in need.

In fact, the Bible speaks at length about the necessity of us being content even when we don’t have anything and we find ourselves completely in need and desperate.

God is responding in vs. 5, because those that are godless and faithless, who are smooth talkers and manipulative, are oppressing those who are poor and needy.

It is because those who are already poor are being plundered by the godless and faithless; it is because those who are already needy are groaning in their need that compels God to respond.

And he responds by promising to “place [them] in the safety for which he longs.”

God’s response to David’s prayer and really to the oppression of the poor compels David to place his confidence in God’s Word through vss.

6-8.

“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.”

David defines God’s words as pure and then he describes the purity of God’s words “like silver refined in a furnace . . .

purified seven times.”

The word pure carries the idea of being ceremonially clean, but I think in light of how the godless and the faithless are in vs. 1-4, it also carries along the idea that what God says is in contrast to what they say.

Whereas the godless and the faithless speak with lies, smooth talk, and manipulation, God speaks the truth without ulterior motive.

What he says, you can trust because he himself is trustworthy.

And he’s utilizing the idea of silver being refined to describe how pure God’s Word is because its something that many people in that time period would be familiar with.

In our modern-day world, we don’t necessarily have experience with this type of industry, so let me just explain the process a bit.

When purifying metals, the metallurgist utilizes fire at an extremely high temperature to melt the metal down and once the metal is melted down, the impurities within the metal start to run out.

Of course, the more times that you do this, the more impurities come out of the metal until you’re left with that substance alone, in this case silver.

The psalmist is making the argument that God’s words are like metal that had been purified seven times, which gives the impression that what God says is so pure it is like metal that has gone through the process of purification so many times that there is no impurity left in the metal.