Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Lord’s Pure Words in a Corrupt Age (Psalm 12) | Charles Spurgeon

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The Lord’s Pure Words in a Corrupt Age (Psalm 12) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reformed Thinking. This is the Deep dive where we
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take a look at specific biblical texts, their history, their
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interpretation, and well, try to distill that into something you
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can really use. And today we are looking at
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Psalm 12. Psalm 12, it's one of those
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ancient prayers that just feels incredibly relevant for anyone
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feeling, you know, a bit isolated in morally chaotic
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times. That's right, we're dissecting a
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set of interpretations that give it this wonderful title, Good
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Thoughts and Bad Times. And it's more than just a
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complaint. It's almost a a spiritual ride
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map for finding your footing. A road map written by David
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during a huge political and moral crisis.
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And The thing is, the crisis he describes, it sounds startlingly
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familiar. It really does.
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So our mission for you, the listener, is to really grasp
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David's strategy here for spiritual certainty.
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I mean, when everything around him was collapsing, political
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leadership, common decency, even personal loyalty, he had to find
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an anchor for his soul somewhere.
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And. We're going to see how we found
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that anchor. He found it in the constant,
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proven character of God's Word. Which is really how the faithful
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find peace when the culture around them feels like it's just
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disintegrating. So to get the full weight of
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David's opening cry, that first line help Lord, we have to start
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right at the top. With the technical stuff.
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With the technical header of the Psalm to the chief musician upon
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shemineth a song of David. OK, that opening right away
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tells you there's more going on than just a simple song.
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Let's start with that word shemineth.
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It literally means the 8th. Most of us, you know, we just
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skip over these headers. What are the sources telling us
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about it? Well, musically the term
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sheminith is. It's generally understood as an
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instruction. It means to play on the lower
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octave. Ah.
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OK, so a lower, more bass heavy sound.
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Probably for male voices, or maybe instruments tuned low.
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And its dedication to the chief musician tells us it was part of
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the official temple liturgy. This was something meant to be
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sung by the people of God together.
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That musical setting, that lower, maybe more somber tone,
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it fits the whole feeling of a lament perfectly, doesn't it?
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It does. But like with so many terms in
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the Psalms, it didn't stay just a musical term for long.
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It picked up a lot of spiritual significance.
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Because of the number 8. Yes, because of the number 8.
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The sources show how this connection led to some pretty
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serious eschatological speculation.
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We find in the Arabic version, for example, an interpretation
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that takes Sheminith to mean the end of the world at the end of
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the. World.
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Or the 8th day. Which is a reference to.
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The new creation, the coming of the Messiah.
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So even though David is writing about a very immediate, very
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earthly problem, you know, wicked advisors, a dangerous
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king, these early readers saw that the solution he was praying
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for was, in the end, cosmic. That's fascinating.
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So they're connecting the sheer scale of the sin he's seeing,
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the the suffering of the persecuted, and God's promise to
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do something about it. Yeah, they're connecting all of
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that directly to Christ's final intervention.
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Precisely. The idea is that only Christ's
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work on that 8th day, the day of new creation, will finally and
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totally get rid of the kind of evil David was chasing.
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That really puts the immediate crisis in a much bigger frame
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then. Yeah, the Christ is personal,
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but the hope he's reaching for is universal.
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I did notice that even Spurgeon when he was commenting on this,
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he called that literal Arabic reading fanciful.
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He did. But he was completely on board
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with the theological direction it was pointing He.
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Was he saw that the Psalm functions as a song of
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complaining faith. It's an immediate cry for help
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that is best understood when you read it in the light of the Lord
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coming to break in pieces the oppressor.
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So the final absolute victory over all this treachery is
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certain, even if it's going to happen long after David himself
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is gone. That's the hope.
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Now there's one other little detail in that title.
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It's identical to the title of Psalm 6, but it's missing one
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word, Nejanath. Nejanath What is the absence of
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that word tell a reader. Well, Najanath means with
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stringed instruments. It's inclusion usually signals a
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more lively, maybe even celebratory musical backing.
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Good for a Psalm of thanks or certain kinds of teaching.
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So it's omission here. It's omission, especially right
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after Sheminif. The lower octave just double s
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down on the somberness of it all.
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It suggests this lament might be purely vocal, a prayer that's so
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raw, so agonizing, that it doesn't need all the complex
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orchestration. It's stripped down, personal,
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and focused entirely on the words themselves.
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Which really reinforces that feeling of just naked
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desperation that kicks off the Psalm.
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OK, so now we need to get into the immediate historical
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atmosphere the bad times David was actually living through.
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Where do our sources put this? They point very strongly to the
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most desperate, the most isolated period of David's life.
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The persecution under Saul. The time of Saul's relentless
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persecution. This wasn't just, you know, a
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general complaint about society going downhill.
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This was triggered by specific acts of moral and political
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destruction. And the sources even suggest a
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specific catalyst, don't they? Something that pushed David over
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the edge and to writing this particular Psalm.
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They do. They identify the probable
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trigger as the the horrendous atrocity of Saul ordering the
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slaughter of the priests of Jehovah Nob.
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Just a horrific event. It's believed David may have
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written this very soon after that happened.
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I mean, Saul's command was just chilling.
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Go kill me up, the priests of Jehovah.
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That's the ultimate act of state sponsored godlessness, isn't it?
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When the King, the one who's supposed to be the protector of
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Israel, orders the murder of 85 priests, it just shows that the
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kingdom's moral compass is completely shattered.
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Utterly shattered. And we can't forget the man who
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set that whole tragedy in motion, Doeg the Edomite, right?
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The sources are pretty clear that David had his eye on Doeg
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when he was writing this lament. Doeg's malicious information to
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Saul, his willingness to use lies and treachery just to get
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ahead, that was the spark that led to the bloodshed.
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So that really clarifies the scope of the crisis for David.
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He wasn't just hiding from an angry king.
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He was living in a world where anyone, even seemingly neutral
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people, might be ready to betray him.
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He was keenly aware of the unreliability of people.
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Think of groups like the men of Ziff and Keila who are more than
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willing to hand him over to Saul for their own political game.
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It must have been absolute isolation.
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Think. About it.
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He's the anointed king of Israel, but he's reduced to
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hiding in The Cave of a Dulum, hanging out with banished ones,
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the outcast, the disaffected. He felt the paucity of his fast
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friends compared to the massive number of his enemies who were
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running the court. And in a situation like that,
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where I mean, the path of political revenge or even
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insurrection might seem pretty tempting.
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Yeah. How does David respond?
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The sources draw a really crucial distinction here.
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And it's a line that's so important for us.
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David's political situation was, well, it was explosive, but his
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response was spiritual. The source material is very
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clear on this. He resorted to solemn
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petitionings rather than seditious plottings.
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His warfare was prayer. His primary warfare was prayer,
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not trying to start an insurrection.
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The whole system was rotten. But his salvation was going to
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come from appealing beyond the system, and that really sets the
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stage for his opening. Desperate cry.
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Help, Lord. That cry help Lord.
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It's the starting gun for the whole Psalm, isn't it?
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Born from this utter despair over the state of society.
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And Section 2 really unpacks the primary source of that despair,
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the total collapse of virtue that's infecting the entire
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nation. David is lamenting a state of
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universal godlessness, of general misrule.
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The crisis isn't, you know, primarily about poverty or
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famine. Those things follow.
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The crisis is a moral vacuum. And he puts it so starkly, The
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godly man ceaseth, and the faithful fail from among the
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children of men. That image of the faithful
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ceasing it suggests the slow, painful erosion of morality.
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So what happens when the godly disappear from a society?
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The sources argue that the state, without the anchors of
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its godly and faithful men, is just left to drift dangerously.
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These are the people whose character stabilizes everything,
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whose honesty prevents total chaos.
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Once they're gone, or once they fail, well, common honesty is no
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longer common. The fear of God just vanishes.
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And with fit all the truthfulness and reliability you
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need for a community to actually function.
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So that's the diagnosis of the vacuum.
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But David doesn't see this as just some organic moral decline.
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He links it directly to political choices, to who is
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running the country. And that gets us to the central
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political complaint of the Psalm The vilest men are exalted.
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This is the engine. This is what's driving the
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social rot. When David looks at Saul's
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court, he sees the very people who should be farthest from
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authority are the ones who have been placed highest.
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Which suggests a kind of trickle down effect of corruption.
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Precisely. The argument being made is that
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the wickedness of those in authority never stays contained.
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It becomes pervasive. When leaders are vile, their
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underlings will be no better. This is why the Psalm ends by
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saying the wicked walk on every side.
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The elevation of the wicked creates a climate, almost a
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license for everyone else to fail.
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Exactly, and to make this point really visceral, the solstice
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use several very descriptive analogies for this kind of
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systemic decay. Let's unpack the first one, the
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one about the fish. It's simple, but you can't
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forget it. The state of society is like a
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fish that putrefies first in the head.
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If the ruling elements, the leaders, the judiciary, the
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monarchy, if they're corrupt, the rot just inevitably spreads
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downwards through the entire body politic.
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It's an infection that starts at the highest source of authority.
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And there's a second analogy that focuses on the the climate
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that wicked governance creates, right?
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Just as a warm sun brings out noxious flies, a Sinner in honor
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fosters vice everywhere. So the person in charge provides
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the warmth and encouragement. Necessary for all the lower,
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pettier forms of corruption, deceit, theft, intimidation to
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just breed and thrive without any checks.
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The whole moral environment sours when your standard bearers
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are morally base. It creates a state of social
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inversion where everything is just backward.
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Yeah, I noticed the commentary on the section use the term
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lozels and rioters. That language speaks directly to
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this inversion. Lozels are, you know, worthless,
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profligate individuals, the dregs of society.
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The lament is against a society that's been turned completely
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upside down, where these lozels and rioters, the dregs of the
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earth, are now uppermost. The worst people are in the best
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places. It's a complaint that rotten
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posts are guilt with adulterate gold.
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The appearance of honor is just masking the corruption
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underneath. Broken moral order has a
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constant specific victim that David sees.
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It always manifests as injustice against the most vulnerable.
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The inevitable outcome is the oppression of the poor and the
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sighing of the needy. The wickedness isn't some
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abstract concept. It hits the people who lack the
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resources to defend themselves. So we've established the
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external pressure from Saul's persecution and this internal
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decay from vile leadership. Now we have to zoom in on the
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specific tool these wicked men are using to enforce their
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corruption, and that's language itself.
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Right. David spends a good amount of
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time dissecting the moral failure that's rooted in human
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language. In his world, communication,
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which ought to express truth and build community, has been turned
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into a weapon. It's a weapon of treachery.
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The Psalm says these men speak vanity.
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How do the sources unpack that idea of vanity?
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Is it just empty talks? It's much worse than that.
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This vanity is described as words that are frivolous, yes,
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but also fundamentally false. They lack substance.
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They are vain to trust to. Their words carry no promise of
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truth, no reliability. They're just manipulative
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smokescreens. And the ultimate proof of this
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unreliability is in the description of their motive,
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this duplicity defined by flattering lips in a double
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heart. That phrase double heart in the
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original Hebrew it translates to a heart and a heart.
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A heart and a heart. It's such a powerful image.
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It doesn't mean they're confused.
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It means conscious concealment. They show one face, you know,
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pretending loyalty or false seal or agreement.
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Those are the flattering lips. But they hide the other face,
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the other heart, which is often black with contempt or filled
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with the intent to cheat. So flattery in this context is
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not an innocent social grace, it's an act of violence against
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the truth. It is absolute treachery.
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Flattery is presented as the sign of the Tavern where
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duplicity is the host. It's the place where deceit is
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the currency. The flatterer is compared to a
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beast that biteth smiling, or a Waterman who looks one way while
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rowing the other. They manipulate with insincere
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praise to get some personal advantage or to trap someone
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who's unsuspecting. In Saul's court, flattery was
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the tool you had to use to survive and get ahead.
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And the sources categorize flattery alongside another major
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moral failure. They link them as twin sins of
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the lips, flattery and pride. Why are those two considered
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twins? Because they share the same
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essential vice falsehood. The flatterer deceives another
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person to gain something, while the proud man deceives or
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flatters himself into believing he's autonomous and superior.
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So in both cases. In both cases, a lie is in their
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right hands. The sources even find a bit of
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pride within the lowest meanness of that cringing flattery,
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because a flatterer believes his own superior deceit will get him
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what he wants. And this pride leads to open
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rebellion against the one person who should be lured over their
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lips. God the wicked make this
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arrogant claim of total autonomy.
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They. Absolutely deny God's
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proprietorship. They boast our lifts are our own
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and they challenge divine authority by asking who is Lord
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over us? And that's the core theological
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crisis in Psalm 12. It is, they are claiming, that
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their speech is their exclusive property to be used entirely for
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manipulation, for lies, for boasting, without any
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accountability to any sovereign power, divine or otherwise.
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It's not just a rebellion against Saul the earthly king.
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It's a Declaration of Independence from Jehovah
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himself, and that's why this verbal treachery is such a
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dangerous act in God's eyes. Precisely that defiant claim who
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is Lord over us is what provokes the Almighty to action.
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It sets up the next section perfectly.
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The strong men boast and plot, but God is moved to action by
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the weakest of prayers. So we have the wicked
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proclaiming their self sovereignty.
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With these boastful words, Section 4 shifts dramatically to
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Jehovah's response. What is it?
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What is this quiet, unexpected catalyst that moves the Almighty
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to intervene? It is the complete reverse of
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everything the wicked value. It's not eloquence.
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It's not political pressure, it's not military might.
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It's the oppression of the poor, and specifically the sighing of
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the needy. That just flips the power
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dynamic completely on its head. The men who claim their lips are
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their own rely on verbal aggression and vanity.
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God is moved by those whose lips can't even speak.
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The sources described the silent suffrage of the faithful, their
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smarts, their pain as being mighty orators with God.
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Mighty orators. The argument is that even when
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the needy were so oppressed or so afraid that they did not dare
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to speak openly, the Lord heard their secret distress.
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The quality of the prayer isn't measured by its length or its
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sophistication, but by the depth of the suffering that caused it.
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This idea of the sigh or the groan being the strongest weapon
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is just it's remarkable. How can helplessness be more
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effective than human strategy? Because helplessness
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demonstrates absolute dependence, the groans in size
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are described as the strongest weapons of all.
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They are sufficient to fetch help from heaven to overthrow
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whole nations. It's the same mechanism we see
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in Exodus, isn't it? It is God heard the groaning of
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the Israelites under Pharaoh's oppression, and that quiet
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suffering is what a weakened God to act against the greatest
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empire on earth at the time. So God sees even the minimal
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expression of pain as a a sufficient prayer.
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A tear has a voice. A groan is often the best part
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of prayer. Yes, the sources say God even
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regards panting or breathing as sufficient prayers.
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A sigh, that involuntary expression of grief, ensures
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that God is awakened and raised up from his silence.
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The wickedness of the oppressors is all based on
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self-sufficiency. The prayer of the oppressed is
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based on the utter failure of self-sufficiency.
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God responds to the. Latter, and the motivation for
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this divine response is often described using these really
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relatable parental analogies. That comparison to parental
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instinct is so vital for showing God's immediate compulsion to
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act. Just as nothing moves a father
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like the cries of his children, Lord is compelled to action.
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There's one about a mother. The sources give us the image of
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the careful mother. She sees her child in the path
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of unruly horses, these blind, brutal forces, and she doesn't
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stop to deliberate or calculate. She instantly whips up her child
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in her arms to safety. The Lord's deliverance is
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portrayed as that same instantaneous, instinctive
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rescue from overwhelming danger. What is the specific nature of
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the sin against the poor that provokes God's most violent
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reaction? The inhumanity of it is
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magnified by the victim's inability to fight back.
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The moral crime is defined this way.
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To rob and oppress the poor because they are poor and lack
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the money to buy justice is called the top of all inhumanity
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and impiety. It's taking advantage of a
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structural disadvantage. It is, and this is the sin that
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warrants the most severe response, prompting pestilence,
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blood and fire from God. Which leads to the critical
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question of timing. If God is so moved by this, why
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doesn't he intervene immediately?
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He waits for the very nick of time.
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This is often defined as man's extremity is God's opportunity.
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He waits until the afflicted and nothing but weep and sigh.
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And the waiting serves a purpose.
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It does. It makes sure that when
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Deliverance does come, it is unmistakably supernatural.
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It creates A glorious opportunity for his own glory,
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making it undeniable that the help came from heaven and not
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from human maneuvering or some political plot.
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Which ties right back to David's choice of petitioning over
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plotting back in The Cave. God's decisive promise to arise
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is His answer to the wicked's arrogance.
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The wicked boasted with their swelling words of vanity,
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claiming self ownership. The Lord responds by offering
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His own pure words. And this is where David finds
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his stability in the absolute durability of divine truth.
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This durability is articulated through that famous
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metallurgical analogy. God's words are likened to
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silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified 7 times.
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We really need to spend some time on this image because it's
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the cornerstone of the believer certainty.
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This is critical. We have to understand what
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purified 7 times would have meant to the ancients.
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It implies the most severely purifying process known at the
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time, far beyond just melting something once.
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So this is a technical process. In ancient metallurgy, to
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separate silver from base metals like lead or copper, the dross
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you needed a process kind of cubilation.
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You'd heat the metal in a bone ash pupil inside a furnace,
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which allowed the base metals to oxidize and be absorbed, leaving
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just the pure silver bead behind.
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So 7 times is not just hyperbole, it represents
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repeated washings and decantations.
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It symbolizes A rigorous, persistent process to achieve
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exact perfection. Each time the silver is heated
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and the dross is removed, it gets closer to being completely
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free from any alloy of error or unfaithfulness.
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It's the standard of absolute reliability.
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Exactly. If human words are vain and
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false, God's words are tested, clean and certain.
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So if God's Word is the silver, what does the refining fire, the
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furnace of earth, represent in the sweep of history and
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theology? The sources identify that
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furnace as the intense heat of trial that God's Word has
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endured over centuries. This includes persecution where
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copies were burned, literary criticism, especially during the
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Enlightenment that sought to dismantle its credibility,
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philosophic doubt questioning its rationality.
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And scientific discovery claiming to invalidate its
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accounts. Right, these are the tests the
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word has been consistently subjected to.
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And what has been the historical result of all this testing?
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That the Bible has lost nothing but those human interpretations
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which clung to it as alloy, and this is a crucial distinction.
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So our theories might fail under pressure.
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Our theories fail, but not a single doctrine or promise of
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God has been destroyed by the most excessive heat of trial or
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skepticism. The purity of the divine message
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remains. And beyond these external
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historical attacks, the sources note that God actively uses
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internal theological conflicts as a refining mechanism.
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He does, which means that even conflicts inside the Church help
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to purify our understanding of the truth.
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Precisely the argument is that because the Holy Spirit is so
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curious, so delicate, so exact, he cannot bear for falsehood,
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for human error, to mingle with the core Gospel message, and
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therefore God frequently puts truth into the fire again
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through theological controversies, to burn off the
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dross of human invention. Let's clarify for the listener
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what some of that specific dross was that got burned off by the
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controversies mentioned the Pelagians, the Papists and the
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Armenians. Sure.
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These three groups represent three different kinds of alloy
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that were added to the pure silver of the gospel.
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OK, starting with the Pelagians. The Pelagians back in the early
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church, they introduced the alloy of human merit and
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self-sufficiency. When it comes to salvation, they
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challenge the necessity of God's sovereign grace.
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They argued that humans could start the process of salvation
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through their own free will and moral efforts.
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And the controversy that followed?
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It burned off that dross. It solidified the pure biblical
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doctrine that salvation is wholly of grace, completely
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dependent on God's initiative. And the Papists?
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The Papists, particularly around the time of the Reformation,
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introduced the alloy of human tradition and ecclesiastical
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authority being equal to or even superior to Scripture.
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The fires of the Reformation that followed those debates over
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Sola Scriptura burned off that hour, affirming that God's Word
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alone is the infallible standard, untainted by human
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councils or traditions. And finally, the Armenians.
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The Armenians in the 17th century, they introduced an
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alloy related to conditional decrees and human choice.
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It seemed to place God's ultimate plan as dependent on
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man's decision. And the reform debates that
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followed that. They purified the understanding
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of God's sovereignty and election.
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They affirmed that His plan is eternal, absolute and certain.
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It ensured that the purity of His word about His control
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remains undiminished. These controversies, as painful
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as they were, they serve to bring the truth out as pure as
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pure may be. This intense refining process
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leads directly to the standard of reliability.
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We are meant to contrast this tested certainty with the yay
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and nay inconsistency of human speech.
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God's words are yay and Amen. They're characterized by
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infallible certainty. If the silver is purified 7
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times, its promise is absolutely certain.
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And to make this point about certainty perfectly clear, the
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sources offer another highly visual analogy, the sun and a
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clock. This analogy just encapsulates
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the whole issue of authority. The scripture is the sun, the
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church is the clock. The Sun is the pure, unchanging
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standard. It is sure and regularly
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constant, the clock, which represents human authority,
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human interpretation, even church tradition is a human
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mechanism, and it may go too fast or too slow.
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The implication is clear. It's folly, It's vanity, to
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trust the variable mechanism of the clock, human authority over
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the absolute constant standard of the sun, which is the pure
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word of God. That purity, achieved through
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the refining process, translates directly into unshakable
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stability for the believer who's hiding from all that treachery.
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So, given the treachery of speech, the collapse of human
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trustworthiness, and now the proven purity of God's Word, the
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necessity of turning from man to God becomes the only logical
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step. The failure of human support is
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a direct, urgent call to prayer. The sources present this failure
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as a kind of spiritual alarm clock.
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The death, departure or decline of godly men should be a trumpet
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call for more prayer. The fact that faithfulness is
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vanishing should motivate the believer.
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Yes, since David could no longer rely on the honesty of courtiers
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or the loyalty of friends, he had to more thoroughly turn from
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man and address ourselves to the Church's Lord.
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The danger is real. The sources say a man had better
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be among lions than among liars because deceit is far more
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perilous than physical aggression.
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David, feeling his total inability to deal with these
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treacherous sons of Belial, appealed to the all sufficient
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helper. And his opening cry help Lord,
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it really shows the versatility of brief prayer when you're
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faced with a crisis. That short petition is described
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as an Angel sword to be turned every way and to be used on all
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occasions. I like that short, instinctive
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prayers are efficient and powerful.
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They're compared to small ships that can successfully trade with
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heaven even when the stream of grace seems at too low in ebb to
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sustain a longer, more laborious supplication.
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It's the immediate, non negotiable resort of the
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afflicted soul. And the Psalm then concludes
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with God's explicit promise of deliverance answering the needy.
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Sigh. The Lord promises to arise.
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That word arise signals action. He's no longer going to sit
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still and permit the oppression. He will gird on his sword for
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the battle to overthrew the enemy and set his beloved in
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safety. The time for waiting is over.
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The time for divine intervention has come.
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And this action provides a final assurance that covers both
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immediate protection and eternal security.
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Absolutely. The safety that's promised
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implies preservation on earth from the current onslaught of
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treachery and, crucially, eternal salvation in heaven,
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preserving the faithful forever from the generation which oppose
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them. Like the careful mother.
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Just like the careful mother whips up her child before the
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unruly horses arrive, the righteous are plucked away
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before they're consumed by the world's.
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Decay. The Psalm closes, though, with a
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sober return to the reality that prompted the prayer in the first
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place, the ubiquitous spread of wickedness.
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The wicked still walk on every side.
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Yes, the societal conditions remain grim.
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The vilest men are exalted. The world itself has not yet
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changed, but the crucial shift has happened within the
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believer. They have found refuge.
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They're no longer dependent on the failing honesty of man.
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No, they're anchored to the absolute standard of God's
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truth, to the constant sun. The conflict continues, but the
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outcome for the faithful is already certain because the
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promise is pure. This Psalm is truly a guide for
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anyone facing social confusion. It teaches us to look past the
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political noise in the vanity of human boasts and focus instead
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on the tested, purified words of Jehovah, knowing that the silent
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suffering of the faithful is the strongest summons to divine
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action. So we've tracked David's
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spiritual strategy and good thoughts and bad times.
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We've moved from political isolation and widespread verbal
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treachery to finding spiritual certainty.
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By contrasting the deceitful nature of man's words with the
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refined word of Jehovah. We established that powerful
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metaphor. God's words are like silver
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tried in the furnace of earth and purified 7 times, proving
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completely free from all alloy of error.
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So consider this closing thought for yourself, if the Scripture
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has survived that ultimate furnace, enduring persecution,
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relentless literary criticism, and centuries of philosophic
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doubt, and not a single doctrine or promise has been consumed or
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compromised. What does this tell you about
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the certainty of his final intervention for the oppressed,
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the intervention he promises in those same infallible words?
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If the instrument is perfectly pure, the promise delivered by
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it must also be absolutely certain.
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Turn to that constant standard and find your refuge there.
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Thank you for joining us for this deep dive into Psalm 12.
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Until next time on reformed thinking.