Psalm 12

This morning we’ll finish up our time in the Psalms…etc.

[Story about being all alone]

That feeling of isolation is what kicks off Psalm 12. The psalmist feels completely alone: “the faithful have vanished from among the children of man.” This is grand language, even hyperbolic language, but it’s a true expression of what many of us have felt in periods of our lives. It is true that our lives can become so oppressive that we feel cut off and alone. This is how the psalmist feels, and so he cries out, “Save, O Lord, for the godly one is gone.”

The psalmist senses a great spiritual decay that has inevitably led to societal decay in Israel, and he grieves the fact that no one is standing up up to lead the nation in a movement of spiritual renewal. So he cries out to God, to come in saving power and grace.

But what does he see that makes him feel as though society was in spiritual decay? What are the marks or indicators according to Psalm 12? Well the first can be seen in verse 1. The godly one is gone and the faithful have vanished - which is to say character is lost.

It cannot be denied that our culture is obsessed with celebrity. And that is true of secular culture, but tragically, in many ways, it is true of Christian culture as well. We are encouraged to fix our eyes on idols and icons. Sports icons, fashion icons, religious icons, Instagram celebrities, YouTube personalities, etc. We are told to strive to be more like these people: smart, beautiful, successful, and influential. These are the people worth emulating.

But what’s missing is any talk of a person’s inner character, because character is largely irrelevant. There have been far too many churches that have gazed in admiration at a pastor’s charisma and ability to draw a crowd, and have turned a blind eye to their inner character. And what has been the result?

And so according to the Psalmist, the first mark of a culture in spiritual decay is the loss of character. The godly one is gone and the faithful have vanished. Those whose character and actions are consistent with the Lord’s are no where to be found.

The second indicator of societal decay is found in verse 2:

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

The Psalmist bemoans the fact that words have become cheap. Everyone around him is lying, or flattering, or speaking duplicitously. The goal is no longer to communicate with one’s neighbor, but rather to manipulate them for one’s own personal benefit.

Why do we spend hours staring at our phones, wracking our brains for the right series of words to accompany the picture of our brunch or beach trip or pet? You know you’ve done this. I’m not the only one. I can’t tell you how long I’ve agonized over some social media posts or text messages. They need to sound cool. They need to sound profound. They need to generate likes or comments. The conversation in our minds is not how our words and interactions can bring blessing to our neighbors, but rather how we can manipulate our words to get something from our neighbors.

In this paradigm, communication becomes a game or a contest.

Fans of the TV Show the Office may remember when Kelly Kapoor is struggling to connect with her boyfriend at the time, and she says, “Darryl is the most complicated man I have ever met. I mean, who says exactly what they’re thinking? What kind of game is that?”

You see, when words become cheap, it corrodes our interactions with others. Discourse becomes a game, and inevitably our connection with our neighbor withers and dies.

Which leads us to the third mark of a cultural decay, which we can infer from verse 5, where we see that the poor and needy are being plundered.

And you can see how these all build on one another and inflame one another. If our connection with our neighbor is corroded, and if human interaction becomes the battleground for gaining personal benefit and advantage, then of course those who are weak and vulnerable will be exploited by the powerful. The poor will be plundered.

So this is what the psalmist is seeing as he looks around him, and we can hear echoes of his ancient context in our own present context.

Now. Perhaps the greatest lesson that we can learn from this psalm is found in how the psalmist responds to the increasing brokenness of the world around him. What does he do first? He laments. He practices the lost art of lamentation.

I say it is a lost art, but in some Christian circles, and in many cases led by Anglicans, the practice of lamentation is making a comeback. What does it mean to lament? It means to express grief and sorrow in the face of suffering. But this psalm teaches us a very important lesson about lament.

It is entirely possible to lament the brokenness and decay of society as an expression of unbelief. You see, it is our natural, human tendency to address our lament to the world - to direct our expressions of grief and sorrow and frustrations and pain to society. We’ll post about it, tweet about it, write articles and books about it. Many of you know that I love to listen to late-night TV Show monologues - and those are essentially lamentations wrapped in comedy. It seems like Twitter and Facebook have become public forums for lament. But it’s a lament that arises from a complaining spirit and it is importantly addressed to, spoken to, directed at the broken world.

But to whom is the psalmist addressing in his lament? It’s not the world. It’s the Lord. The secular person looks around and screams into the void, “This world is awful!” But the believer looks around and grabs his brothers and sisters and together they pray, “Lord, this is an awful world. Arise and act. Come with your saving power and grace.” The psalmist turns his lament to the Lord. And this is so important because when we lament to the world, we reap the fruit of despair. But when we lament to the Lord, we reap the fruit of faith.

So the psalmist, living in the grips of spiritual decay, turns his lament to the Lord and cries out, “Save, O Lord.” But look at what he knows that salvation will mean:

in verse 3:

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?”

According to the psalmist, what will it take to save the poor and needy? What must the saving work of God entail? The psalmist says that by one means or another, God must close the mouths of those who sow destruction in the world. Salvation must mean that the Lord silences the one who speaks destruction into the world.

And there is one entity whose very language is destruction. If we’re talking about those with lying lips, of this one, Jesus calls the father of lies in whom there is no truth. John calls him the adversary and accuser, and reminds us that from the very beginning this ancient serpent has been spewing forth destructive lies into our world.

And perhaps his favorite and most destructive lie is that God could never love someone as broken and compromised as you. This is the sort of lie that gets into your skin and sends you spiraling into all kind of destructive behaviors. It holds you captive in an iron prison of self-loathing and shame, robbing you of joy and peace. This lie is powerful. It is persuasive, and it is in our nature to believe it.

The psalmist is right. There is no salvation unless the Lord silences the one who speaks lies and destruction.

And now, at the epicenter of the poem. We hear the Lord speak. Look with me at what he says: 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.”

There is something beautiful in these words. There’s a gift of hope for those of us who hear that age-old lie day in and day out that we are unclean and too marred to be worthy of God’s love. There is something to hold on to in these words from the Lord.

It is neither the righteousness of the psalmist, nor that of the needy; neither is it the prayer itself that provides the grounds for God’s saving action. Rather, it is the suffering of the powerless that motivates the Lord to act. What causes the Lord to stir and arise to bring salvation? It’s not the holiness and blamelessness of the one who cries out, it is the suffering that they are experiencing - their helplessness, their desperation, their need - that is what causes the Lord to draw near with his saving power and grace.

Ours is the kind of God who acts for the one who is in need. In other words, he is not the kind of God who is waiting for you to perfectly perform a list of dos-and-don’ts. He is not the kind of God who is waiting for you to get your act together and perform at a certain level of morality or piety. No, he states right here that he is the kind of God who rescues the powerless, the desperate, and the weak. Those who cannot stand against the destructive lies of the world on their own strength. For them - for us, he arises to silence the lies.

Martin Luther wrote a wonderful song that we sing pretty regularly at Redeemer. The song is called, A Mighty Fortress is our God. It’s a magnificent song, full of rich theological truths. As I was exploring this psalm this week, I kept coming back to a stanza in that song. Luther writes:

The Prince of Darkness grim, We tremble not for him; His rage we can endure, For lo! His doom is sure. One little word shall fell him.

One little word shall fell the Prince of Darkness. One little word can give us the strength to withstand his raging lies. One little word can eliminate all danger that he might present. Truth be told, I’ve sung that song for years and years, but I never sought out what “little word” Martin Luther was referring to. Does anybody here know?

I first thought it was the classic Sunday School answer! It’s Jesus! If I simply say the name Jesus, the devil will recoil and all temptation will just bounce right off of me. But that’s a little childish. Jesus' name is not a magic spell that scatters evil spirits or temptation.

No, “Jesus” is not the word that Luther is referring to. In his writings, we find that the little word that snuffs out the power of the adversary is the simple verdict, “Liar.” You see, for Luther, and I think he is right, the way we can live in a world that is in spiritual decay, where everyone lies, or flatters, or speaks with masked intentions. A world where the destructive lies of God’s enemies surround us within and without - the way that we can live in such a world is to believe the truth of the gospel. To believe the promises of God, that in Christ we are justified, we are clean, and holy and blameless, that we are the delight of the Father, and that his ways lead to life, joy, and peace in this life and in the life to come.

The way we live in this world is to know the truth, so we can see the lies for what they are.

This is where the psalmist takes his stand - in the promises of God’s deliverance. After hearing the Lord speak, he says in verse 6:

6 The words of the Lord are pure words,

like silver refined in a furnace on the ground,

purified seven times.

7 You, O Lord, will keep them; [the poor]

you will guard us from this generation forever.

In contrast to the words of the oppressor, which have been tested and found to be empty, arrogant, and destructive. The words of the Lord have been tested and his promise of deliverance has been found to be perfectly refined and pure.

Our enemy wants nothing more than for our spiritual lives to decay under the weight of his forked tongue, and the only way that we can withstand his lies is if the Lord silences him by writing the truth of his gospel upon our hearts. Each week we say this pray, “Lord, may your words be always on our minds, upon our lips, and deep in our hearts.” Because when the saving work of Jesus Christ is woven into our hearts and minds, and when the Spirit of Christ dwells within us, we can speak the word of faith, that little word of faith. “Devil, you are a liar.’

I don’t know what lie you are struggling against, but I know that we’re all struggling against some lie or series of lies. You cannot stand up against it on your own. You’re natural proclivity will always be to believe the lie and take the path that leads to destruction. You need the Lord to silence the lies, and the primary way that he does so is by exposing them to be lies by the light of his truth.

Peter loves to watch Curious George right now, and in one episode, the poor monkey was terrified of the monsters in his room that came out at night. They were big and ugly and menacing. But then the man in the yellow hat came in with a flashlight, and when he illuminated the monsters, it turned out that they were just clothes thrown over a coatrack, or a pile of magazines on the sofa. In the dark, they looked so real, but in the light, they George saw them for what they really were, and the fear left him.

That is what the gospel does. It illuminates the monsters and exposes them for the frauds they are. And so whatever lie you are dealing with today, the answer is not to ignore it. Nor is it to repeat the name of Jesus like some kind of magical spell. The answer is to listen to the words of the Lord which are pure, and let the promises of God silence the lies.

If we do that, then even if nothing changes in the world, everything changes for us. That’s how the Psalm ends. Verse 8 shows us that nothing about the situation has changed.

8 On every side the wicked prowl,

as vileness is exalted among the children of man.

If we had our way, we’d throw this last verse out and end the psalm with the beautiful promise in verse 7. But here we see that nothing has changed! The wicked still prowl around on every side. Nothing has changed!

Except everything has changed…for the psalmist, even if nothing has changed in the world, because he now has the way forward. Paul understood this well. In Romans 8, he goes through a litany of all kinds of trials and hardships that he and the church will face: Sword, danger, famine, distress, persecution, going so far as to quote the prophets and say that we are being killed all the day long! And then he says these famous words.

“In all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”