Psalm 12
Vs. 1-5 show how “bad” times can get;
Vs. 5-7 show God’s word preserves the godly in the midst of the ungodly;
Vs. 8 shows the hard reality that is to be faced.
Surrounded by the sinful (Psalm 12:8), King David points out a most disheartening belief in verse 4: “Our lips are our own; Who is lord over us?” When even sinners abandon speaking truth, there is no confidence in anyone, anything, anywhere. Truthfulness is often the greatest casualty in the moral conflict, and distrust results. Later in history, the Israelis were morally failing again as Isaiah recorded: “For your hands are defiled with blood, And your fingers with iniquity; Your lips have spoken lies, Your tongue has muttered perversity. No one calls for justice, Nor does any plead for truth. They trust in empty words and speak lies; They conceive evil and bring forth iniquity” (Isaiah 59:3-4). Other expressions of this truth death included: “conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood” (Isaiah 59:13), “truth is fallen in the street” (Isaiah 59:14), thus “truth fails” (Isaiah 59:15). At the same time as Isaiah, Hosea recorded: “Hear the word of the LORD, You children of Israel, For the LORD brings a charge against the inhabitants of the land: ‘There is no truth or mercy Or knowledge of God in the land. By swearing and lying, Killing and stealing and committing adultery, They break all restraint, With bloodshed upon bloodshed’” (Hosea 4:1-2).
In Psalm 12:1-2, David points out that, without truth, “the godly man ceases” and “the faithful disappear” (vs. 1), speaking “idly” with “flattering lips” and a “double heart” (vs. 2). Surely there was no truth in them, as Jesus Christ later described the Devil (John 8:44)! Today, Christians should be “putting away lying, ‘Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,’ for we are members of one another” (Ephesians 4:25) and therefore “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). Beware of any who have abandoned truth.
Every time falsehood abounds, God’s Words, purified 7 times (completely pure), are preserved from that generation (Psalm 12:5-7). The accuracy of the Bible is unparalleled and no other book is its equal. No matter how corrupt any age becomes, God’s Word remains untouched, protected by God. Hence, we may always rely on the Bible (which is from God) to accurately tell us what His will is (Ephesians 3:1-12). Bible truth contrasts with the lies of: Evolution which is Creation without God (Romans 1:24-25; Acts 14:15-17; Hebrews 11:3; 1 Corinthians 15:39-40); Global Warming which denies God’s universal seasons (Genesis 8:22); Absolute government authority which denies God’s limits of human government (Romans 13:3-6); Missing Bible Books which denies God’s assertions of the completeness of the Bible (Jude 3; 1 Corinthians 14:37); Internet intimacies which deny God’s rules of friendship (John 15:12-15; Proverbs 6:12-15; 17:17; 18:24; 19:4,6; 27:6). To ask “what is truth?” one should accept the answer: Jesus is “the truth” (John 18:37-38; 14:6).
