Sermon Tone Analysis

Psalm 12

“If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.”

Do you know who said this?

If you say ‘Adolf Hitler,’ I will not be surprised because this quote is commonly attributed to him.

Ironically, this quote and its supposed source has been repeated so frequently that we’ve accepted it as true, though it technically isn’t.

Instead, this statement rather summarizes a concept called “the big lie.”

In his book, Mein Kampf, Hitler accused the Viennese Jews of using this tactic to discredit the German’s activities in WWI.

He said, “From time immemorial, however, the Jews have known better than any others how falsehood and calumny can be exploited.”

In a 1941 article entitled “Churchill’s Lie Factory,” Hitler’s Nazi propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels, said, “The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it.

They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.”

Later, in 1943, Walter Langer of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services, a US intelligence agency) wrote a report entitled “A Psychological Analysis of Hitler,” in which he stated that one of Hitler’s primary “rules” was that “people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.”

Though Hitler and his propaganda team didn’t produce our original quote, as commonly assumed, the idea remains true that he operated by this principle while also accusing other nations of doing the same – English, Jewish, or otherwise.

This problem resembles the problem that was responding to in Psalm 12. David was responding to the frustrating problem of the prevailing lies that people tell which seem so powerful and which cause great pain and suffering among God’s people.

We can trust God’s Word when everyone else speaks nonsense.

For the lead musician, on the eighth, a psalm of David.

With this poetic expression, David – who either would be or already was – the king over God’s chosen people, provided yet another song for the nation of Israel to sing together when they gathered for worship.

As we examine this psalm, we can summarize what it says with this way: no matter what everyone else is saying and how badly their words may hurt us, we can trust in what God has said.

His words are reliable and powerful and theirs is not.

This psalm follows a simple 3-1-1-3 pattern.

In the first three verses, David explains a problem in the form of a prayer to God.

Then he tells us what people say in v. 4 (which is the problem) and what God says in v.5 (which is the solution).

In the final three verses, he provides a truth-based response to the problem with God in mind.

It’s hard to find reliable, godly people.

(vv.

1-3)

Help, Yahweh, for the godly have ceased to exist –

for the faithful have vanished from among the children of man!

They speak nonsense, each man to his neighbor,

with smooth lips and a double heart, they speak.

May Yahweh cut off all smooth lips,

the tongue that speaks big words.

David opens this psalm with a call to Yahweh for help.

The reason for this call for help was that “the godly have ceased to exist.”

David emphasizes this problem by repeating and expanding it for dramatic effect.

In David’s experience, God-fearing, reliable people had become hard to find.

Whether in his circle of government and religious advisers or in the public at large, he perceived the vast majority of people around him to be unreliable in their words and motives.

“They speak nonsense” may refer to any advice, conversation, or promise on a sliding scale ranging from wicked and immoral talk, to dishonest and false information, to empty and worthless conversation.

That’s why I’ve translated this as “nonsense.”

“Smooth lips” describes saying things that slide easily from your mouth into another person’s ears.

This image envisions words which are easy for another person to receive because they either flatter them or tell them what they want to hear.

“With a double heart” reads literally as “with a heart and a heart,” so I’ve translated it as a “double heart.”

This image envisions a person who thinks one thing but says another.

The stereotypical “Minnesota Nice” approach to communication runs this risk when we smile and talk as though everything is okay when we think or feel something very different.

David wishes God would “cut off all smooth lips” and “tongues.”

Although this Hebrew word – “cut off” – often refers to destruction in general, here it adds a degree of vivid expression as David envisions God performing some dramatic plastic surgery by removing the lips and tongues of all the unreliable people who were speaking useless or hurtful words.

Such action would both reveal who the culprits were while also curbing their ability to keep on talking.

What a wonderful world it would be if this were so!

David goes on to describe the content of what these people were saying as “big words” (or “big things”).

Such a description implies that they were speaking grandiose things which sounded appealing but were rooted in pride and self-centeredness rather than the truth of God.

David describes these “big words” in the following verse.

People say whatever they want to say.

(v.

4)

They say, “With our tongue we will prevail,

our lips are with us –

who is our master?”

This is what people were saying.

“With our tongue we will prevail” means that they believed they could determine their destiny and change their world by spreading their words and ideas.

They believed that they would conquer the world by using their words as their primary weapon.

“Our lips are with us” portrays their lips as though they were soldiers who were enlisted into their army and under their command.

“Who is our master?”

continues this idea, indicating that these people believed they had no obligation to follow the words of any other authority – esp.

God and also his chosen king, David.

They would do as they pleased, and no one could tell them otherwise or judge them for doing so.

What God says is what matters.

(v. 5)

“Because of the oppression of the afflicted, because of the groaning of the needy,

now I will rise up,” says Yahweh,

“I will place him in the safety for which he longs.”

Here at the center of the psalm, David pivots from the words of ungodly people to the words of God.

He quickly and clearly contradicts their claim that would have no one speaking over them.

By placing their words in direct contrast to God’s words, shines the light of a much greater reality onto their dishonest talk and useless plans.

David envisions God himself responding to their godless claims.

Their self-centered words and plans were causing other people to be “afflicted” and to become “needy.”

As they served themselves, they failed to serve the best interests of other people and caused pain and heartache in other’s lives.

To this, God said he would arise.

He would rise up and take action against those who damaged others by their self-centered words and plans.

He would rescue those who were suffering and restore them to safety, free from the hardships and negative effects of all that godless people were saying.

God’s words are the words you can rely on.

(vv.

6-8)

The words of Yahweh are pure words,

as silver refined in a furnace of clay, refined seven times.

You, Yahweh, will protect them;

you will preserve them from this generation forever.

All around, the wicked are walking

as that which is worthless is exalted among the children of man.

Having contrasted the words of godless people with the words spoken by God, David reaches some final conclusions.

First, he recognizes the reliability of whatever God says.

Unlike the grandiose words of ungodly people, which seem so powerful and yet are genuinely worthless and powerless in the end, the words of God are pure – very pure.

Unlike the “double-hearted” words of people who say one thing but think another, God thinks and says one thing.

He says what he thinks, and he thinks what he says.

On this we can rely.

David describes this reliability with a metaphor of raw, precious metal – such as silver or gold – that becomes pure after a meticulous process of heating that element to increasing temperatures until all other elements and impurities rise to the top and are removed.

So, God’s word is like purified silver.

It is what it is.

He does not say wicked, worthless, dishonest, or deceptive things.

He only speaks the truth, and what he says always happens exactly as he said it would.

That’s why David felt confident that God would preserve his people, despite all their suffering, to the end of time.

That’s the second conclusion David reaches here.

Why?

Because that’s what God said he would do.

Unlike so many people in our lives who say things which never actually come to pass, whatever God says he will do.