Psalms

How much do you value the truth? Do you value the truth? There some that do

and some that don’t. There are many who value the truth, but only as far as it is

convenient or beneficial to them. It is much more difficult to value and to stand

for the truth when it is inconvenient and a detriment to not only yourself but to

those you care about, your friends, your family, those things you hold dear.

There many who have profited and benefited from lying. Just take for example all

of the scam artists out there who are constantly calling our phones or texting us

about past due speeding tickets or mail that needs to be claimed at the nearest

pickup location. There are many scam artists who act as tech support to help

people with their computer needs. So, they get remote access to their computers

and then their banking information and identity information leaving their victims

with empty bank accounts and stolen identities. Email spam that may lead to

things like phishing are just things we are constantly trying to be on guard against.

If you see an email that says you won a free cruise to the Bahamas, don’t open it!

And we can all just sit back and point fingers and say, well at least I’m not that

bad. I was told by one of my Sunday school teachers that whenever you point your

finger at someone, there are three pointing right back at you. Now, we may not

have committed the crimes previously mentioned, but maybe we’ve fudged our

resumes at one time or another to give us a better chance at getting the job we

always wanted. Maybe we’ve lied to get that promotion that we believe we

deserved and it wouldn’t be right if so and so got the promotion instead of us.

After all, we worked hard for it.

If we take a moment to reflect on this, we can all admit that we have lied at one

time or another no matter what it was about. We have deceived, whether by

telling flat out lies or seemingly innocent white lies or telling half-truths which, at

the end of the day are the worst kinds of lies. As Christians, the more and more

you begin to value the truth, the more repulsed you become when it comes to lies

and deception.I can just take a quick evaluation of the culture we currently live in and I can

confidently say with all honesty and integrity that we do not live in a world that

values the truth. The further our culture moves away from God, the less we value

the truth. What did Jesus say in John 14:6? “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

So, no wonder. The further away we get from Jesus, the further away from the

truth we are.

And then you get to speaking with someone who says, “well there isn’t such a

thing as absolute truth.” To which I would respond, “is that statement absolutely

true?”

The main theme of today’s psalm is all about the contrast between the lies of the

world that oppress and the truth of God which guards and protects.

Psalm 12:1

Save, O Lord, for the godly one is gone;

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

Have you ever felt this way? Maybe you walked onto a warehouse floor and you

just dread it every day because you feel like you’re walking into a place where

people don’t honor God.

I remember working at a factory (I’ve worked at 3 different ones through my

college years during breaks.) I remember after a couple years into the one job,

one of my cousins was hired there as seasonal “college help” as well. She was a

few years younger than I was and the first thing she said to me when we were

standing in line to clock out on her first day was, “I can’t believe people swear so

much around here.”

Friends, as Christians, we are strangers living in a foreign land. And when we live

as we ought to, we’re going to stand out. I learned really quick that simply by the

way we talk, we can be a witness to an ever watching world. People are going to

notice something different about you. And you can say to them when the

opportunity presents itself and the question is asked, you can respond with, “let

me tell you about Jesus who changed my life.”On the floor of a sheet metal factory, my department took notice of my work

ethic. And just to give you a bit of context, this was the culture and climate I was

working in. People would simply come to work to clock in and clock out and

collect a paycheck and that was it. So, when my co-workers saw a different kind of

work ethic than they were used to, they figured I was just trying to score points

with the supervisor. One asked me, “What are you trying to do?” (I won’t use the

terms they used), but they continued to say in a sense, “are you trying to win

favor with the supervisor?” I told him, I don’t work for him. I work for HIM.

There’s a phrase that goes like this. “How you do the little things is how you do

everything.” Another one like it is from a book by Admiral William H. McRaven

called, “Make Your Bed.” He says, “If you can't do the little things right, you will

never do the big things right.”

I remember sitting in my high school locker room before a basketball game looking

up at a sign that said, “Work hard when no one is watching.” In a sense, this is like

the integrity quote. “Do what’s right even when no one is watching.” But here’s

the funny thing about that. Our heavenly Father sees everything.

Do what’s right, even if it seems like no one else notices or cares. Make sure the

words you use build up those around you, because there are plenty of the kind

that tear town. Choose to live for God in a world that teaches you to live for

yourself…”You do you.” Choose to live for God, even if it feels lonely because

here’s the truth of the matter. You are not alone.

David, here in Psalm 12 is feeling alone. In the following verses he describes why

he feels this way.

Psalm 12:2

Everyone utters lies to his neighbor;

with flattering lips and a double heart they speak.

What David is describing here is something that we can all relate to in some way.

His world very much feels like our world. Why is that? People are people, no

matter the language one speaks, or the color of one’s skin, man or woman, or thevery brief speck we occupy on the timeline of human history, no matter where

that is, 1000 BC or 2025 AD, people are people.

I remember in elementary school, I used to say I was related to different

celebrities in order to somehow gain a better standing in the eyes of my fellow

contemporaries (other 4th graders). And yes, I have since repented of that.

Just the other night, I watched a movie with JJ. If you know me, you know that I

love movies. In particular, I love movies directed by Christopher Nolan. I came to

find out that one of the actors in one of his movies had lied earlier in his career

about attending a highly esteemed educational institution in order to raise his

acting stock to get bigger and better roles. Here’s the thing…it worked.

What I want us to know is that a lie is not good or bad based on the outcome, but

that lying and deception is the prostitution of God’s gift of language and using it

for evil purposes. It is straight from the devil himself. He is, after all, the Father of

lies.

This verse is also a caution to be weary of smooth talkers. There are people who

speak sweet things, but their words are laced with deadly poison. Be on guard. In

a world that is moving away from God, and where truth-telling is no longer

valued, what else should we expect?

Several months ago, my father in law preached and he brought up a very good

point in his sermon. Why do we have a month in the year called Pride month? It

should be called Sin month, because that’s what it is. We don’t live in a world that

calls sin, sin anymore. This is simply a result of a move away from God and his

moral imperative as well as the movement away from absolute truth to that of

moral relativism. “Well, that’s you’re truth.” No, truth is truth.

Just in this one example, you can see how truth-telling can quickly become not so

popular. You can probably guess the names I’ve been called and the labels I’ve

been given: bigot, chauvinist, racist, sexist, homophobe. All of which are not the

truth, but are lies that are projected as the truth.

As Christians, we must stand for the truth, even if it costs you something. It is

standing when everyone else has bent the knee to the lies of this world.Psalm 12:3-4

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?”

David is calling upon God to act. Again, as we have been getting accustomed to is

this figure of speech. “May the Lord cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that

makes great boasts.” We are not to envision lipless and tongueless people. What

David is hoping and calling to God for is that this form of evil, the deception, the

pride, the arrogance of men would be put to an end. As we will see later, the

result of the kind of evil is the oppression of the vulnerable, the poor, the needy,

those who may not be able to speak or stand for themselves.

Take another look at the arrogance that some had in verse 4, People were saying,

“With our tongue we will prevail, our lips are with us; who is master over us?”

There is this defiance going on here. It’s not the kind of ignorance that one is

unaware that there is a god. But one that recognizes that God exists, and taunts

Him. “Who’s my master? Surely not you.”

What this brought to mind was the theme song from a TV show called Malcom in

the Middle. The song is entitled Boss of Me and the chorus goes like this.

“You're not the boss of me now

You're not the boss of me now

You're not the boss of me now

And you're not so big

You're not the boss of me now

You're not the boss of me now

You're not the boss of me now

And you're not so big”

The more poetic version of this sentiment comes from the end of a poem called

Invictus.“It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.”

Do we not see people who think like this and live like this? “God doesn’t tell me

what I can or cannot do.” “I know God says I can’t do this…I’m going to go ahead

and do it anyway.”

The world loves the idea of a Savior, but many don’t like the idea of Lordship.

Lordship means submission, and it is not in our human nature to want to submit.

Just ask a toddler who doesn’t want to go to bed at night.

Psalm 12:5

“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.”

Again, we see that God is close. He is not a distant God who has no concern over

His creation. He is a God who responds to the cries of the broken and the hurting.

How encouraging and uplifting it must have been for David to receive this

assurance from God. “I will now arise and place him in the safety for which he

longs.” Those words must have felt like warmth on a bitter cold night, light in a

very dark place, hope where all hope seemed lost. Yes, I agree with Alistair Begg

when he said, “the psalms is like medicine for the soul.”

Psalm 12:6

The words of the Lord are pure words,

like silver refined in a furnace on the ground,

purified seven times.

In contrast to the lies that David spoke about earlier, he compares the words of

God. God’s words are pure, like refined silver, perfect, without defect, purified

seven times. They are perfect, complete. They are dependable, reliable, you willnot be left wanting because they will satisfy. They will never come up empty. His

words are without flaw.

What that meant for David, and what it means for us here today, is that if God

says it, He means it. I not only want us to believe in God, but I also want us to

believe Him. In last week’s message, I said that we need to trust Him. And

believing God is trusting God.

Psalm 12:7-8

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.

The promises of God don’t typically take us out of the danger, out of the fire so to

speak, but they give us the strength and the courage to endure.

“I see those bent bows and fitted arrows, but God, you’re on the throne, you’ve

got this. Whether it’s in this life or the next, I know that my salvation is found in

You and You alone.”

How do we as Christians, live in a world built on lies?

We begin by valuing the Truth. It is refusing to trade the truth for a lie. We often

do that when lying seems to bring about a better outcome than telling the truth.

“A person who lives only for his own comfort and survival and who is willing to live

within a lie to protect that, is, a demoralized person.”

Vaclav Havel said this during the tyranny of the Czechoslovak police state. In that

time, there was everything to lose if you stood for truth.

“We live outside the mainstream, courageously defending the truth, and being

willing to endure the consequences.” (excerpt from Live Not By Lies)Let’s recall what Paul says,

Philippians 1:21

21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

Let me end my message by sharing a story of how this is lived out.

“Defending the right to speak and write freely, even when it costs you something,

is the duty of every free person. So says Maria Wittner, a hero of the 1956

Hungarian uprising against Soviet occupation. A communist court sentenced

Wittner, then only twenty, to death, though this was later commuted to life

imprisonment.

“Once I said to one of the guards in prison, ‘You are lying.’ For that alone, I was

taken to trial again,” remembers the feisty Wittner. :The state prosecutor said to

me, ‘Wittner, why did you accuse the guard of being a liar? Why didn’t you just

say, ‘You’re not telling the truth’? I said, ‘It matters that we speak plainly.’”

For her insolence, Wittner was sent back to prison with extra punishments. She

had to sleep on a wooden bed with no mattress and was given reduced rations. By

the time her sentence was commuted and she was released, Wittner weighed

scarcely one hundred pounds. Nevertheless, she insists that a broken body is a

price worth paying for a strong and undefiled spirit.

“We live in a world of lies, whether we want it or not. That’s just the case. But you

shouldn’t accommodate to it. You will be surrounded by lies, you don’t have a

choice. Don’t assimilate to it. It’s an individual decision for each person.

You have to live in a world of lies, but it’s your choice as to whether that world

lives in you.”