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[0:00] Save, O Lord, for the godly one is gone, for the faithful have vanished from among the children of man. Everyone utters lies to his neighbor with flattering lips, and a double heart they speak.

[0:16] May the Lord cut off all the flattering lips, the tongue that makes great boast, those who say, With our tongue we will prevail, our lips are with us, who is master over us?

[0:26] 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.

[0:37] The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times. You, O Lord, will keep them, you will guard us from this generation forever.

[0:49] On every side the wicked prowl, as vileness is exalted among the children of men. It doesn't take too long in this psalm before you realize it's not one of thanksgiving or praise.

[1:04] But this is a psalm of lament. And if you look at the psalm, you'll find that a third of the psalm is made up of laments.

[1:15] So from that we can kind of get an idea of how important a role that is for us in our Christian growth. But also it gets us to see how real some of these struggles are in our life.

[1:31] Because God has laid it on the heart of David and the other writers to bring laments out. So what I want to do is just focus on the aspects of a lament as we look at the psalm.

[1:44] And just see how it helps us and what exactly is going on here. And as you guys know, a lament is a passionate expression of grief or sorrow about a trial or trouble that's going on.

[1:59] And then there's a cry out to the Lord for help from that. So as we look at Psalm 12, the first part of a lament is the cry.

[2:12] And we see that in verse 1 where David says, Save, O Lord, for the godly one is gone. For the faithful have vanished from among the children of men. So we see right from the beginning that he's crying out to the Lord.

[2:31] And the problem that's going on is that he feels alone in his struggles. His struggles in following the Lord and having a pure and righteous life.

[2:46] And those around him that were once godly are gone. So whether it's people close by or people around him, people that are in authority over him, there's this oppression that has come in as everyone who was once their support he feels is now gone.

[3:05] Now, this is a lament that's not a personal one, although it sounds at first like it. But it's a lament that affects the whole family of God, the people of God.

[3:17] So not only does it affect them in that it's the people of God that are turning away from God, but it's those few that are left that are wanting to stand strong that are feeling the effect of those who are pulling away.

[3:33] The second part of the lament is the complaint. And that's pulled out in verse 2 where David is talking about what the real problem is. And that's basically the lies, the flattering, the double talk, the hypocrisy.

[3:49] It's the, I'm not sure who my friends are because on one hand they tell me things they want me to hear, but behind my back it's something else. So that just adds to the cry.

[4:02] It's feeling like that you're alone and at the same time you don't know who to trust. And I think we can all relate to this.

[4:14] I know I can and I'm not the only one that has family issues, but we all know there's people who talk and act one way to you. And then when you're not there it's something different.

[4:26] And it's hard for family or friends to relate to that. Like if you're the one doing it, it's hard to connect with that coming from someone who's a friend or family member because it just doesn't make sense, especially I think for Christians because that's not how God calls us to roll.

[4:46] That's not how we are to live. So we have examples of that I'm sure in our own life, but there's also examples all through the Bible of how this has taken place.

[4:58] So here there isn't an exact example that's being talked about. The thought is that this was taking around the time of Saul's reign.

[5:10] So we have Saul and his persecution against David, which was just years of relentless, like wanting to kill David.

[5:22] And just to get into the details of all that was involved, that was pretty oppressive for David and for him to at one point have a chance to kill Saul and then him not because he knew that God anointed him was really just a testimony to us on how God will protect us when we do what he calls us to do, even when every part of our body wants to just deal with the problem, which in that case was to kill Saul.

[5:53] Another example that I was thinking of was with Joseph and his brothers. We just finished reading through that section in children's ministry. And just the fact that Joseph was just seeking to do what God was calling him to do.

[6:07] And it seemed like at every turn he was being lied against by his brothers, sold into slavery. You know, he tried to be a good slave and then he was lied against and thrown into prison.

[6:18] So it was just time after time where he's being bombarded by these lies and hypocrisy. And in the end, God was still protected, just like he did with David.

[6:29] And then finally, the biggest example of all would be Jesus Christ and the lies and the accusations that he endured all because of the people who wanted to keep their political power.

[6:46] They wanted to keep their status. And in order to do that, they thought they needed to lie and accuse Jesus and ultimately kill him. And they did, but we know the story doesn't end there.

[6:59] So praise be to God for that. So we have the cry and the complaint. And next we have the petition, which is in verses 3 and 4. And this is the crying out to God for help.

[7:12] May the Lord cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that makes great boast. And those who say, With our tongue we will prevail, our lips are with us, who is master over us.

[7:25] So here we have we have the description of people who are very boastful and selfish. They're very self-centered.

[7:37] There's no looking to God for anything. They are master over their own lives and they don't need God there. David knows this and this is the problem that he's dealing with and he's asking God for help.

[7:56] And just while we're we're talking about these type of people who look at just themselves and not to God and are proud and boastful, these are the type of people that we all know can ruin relationships.

[8:12] They ruin families. They also split churches. I've been in one where that's the case and I know you guys have heard about it.

[8:26] So as we are on this section, I just wanted to take a moment just to just to tell you to guard yourself against falling into that temptation of thinking more about ourselves and less about God.

[8:39] Because as we start to do that, then Satan is going to do everything he can to keep you from looking to God. And when you're looking to yourself, that's when you don't need God or so you think and things fall apart.

[8:53] So continue to to focus on Christ. The next section is in verse 5 and that is the response that that David gets back from God.

[9:06] not all Psalms have this type of response back. Some of them there's that plea and there's that asking God for help and then there's there's a kind of a preaching to oneself as they remind themselves of God and how he's the protector and he will come through for them.

[9:28] But here in verse 5 we actually get a word back from the Lord. Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groaned, I will now arise says the Lord.

[9:38] I will place him in the safety for which he longs. In that case speaking of the the poor and the needy. So God sees what's going on and God judges those who sin against him.

[9:54] Those who oppress others. So we can take heart in that in that response from God knowing that at times we want to fix it but God knows what's going on.

[10:08] God has a plan and so we do our part by not spreading those lies and hypocrisies and we let God take it from there. And the last part of lament is a statement of confidence and that usually comes towards the end as the psalmist is reminded of who God is and who he is for us and we see that in verse six and seven the words of the Lord are pure words like silver refined in a furnace on the ground purified seven times.

[10:41] You O Lord will keep them you will guard us from this generation forever. In that last part verse seven you will keep them speaking of the poor and needy God will keep them and then he will guard us from this generation forever.

[10:57] So that's that's the promise that we have that we know we can hold on to. And one one phrase that as I was reading through this kind of kind of stuck in my mind was that he was talking about silver being refined and I just wondered why why silver like why did he pick silver here and not gold because to me gold is is worth more you know if that to me would be pure maybe because it is worth more but not necessarily and I looked around a little bit but didn't really see a whole lot on why silver was used here so I'm just going to give you my own interpretation and may not be biblical but I think it's still something that's helpful to hold on to and that was as we see gold used in the Old Testament a lot of times gold is is more for decorative reasons more for display whereas silver is something a little bit more attainable silver is more for something that's

[11:59] I don't want to say useful but like for utensils or bowls you know a silver utensil would be something you could use the gold plating on something may not be necessarily something you could use so in thinking of the words of the Lord and then being at like something pure but attainable and usable that that made more sense to me so the words of the Lord being like like pure holy silver that we're able to use for whatever God calls us to use just made more sense and thinking of that purification process that they take silver through to refine a metal seven times as they melt it and then pull the imperfections and the dross off the top of that melted precious metal you just get the idea of this total pureness when it's done they said that the that the person doing the the purifying of the silver would look at the surface of the silver and he should be able to see his reflection increase as he pulled off those imperfections and the the dirt and all that got mixed into it and to me that was a beautiful picture of what Christ is looking to do he's looking to see a reflection of himself and so that's a good example of what he does with us is to continue to refine us and purify us and then the last the last verse just as the the psalm ends up is kind of a reminder that that God is going to guard us from this generation which is the end of verse seven he'll guard us from this generation forever this generation of godless self-centered people that they spread lies it sounds rough to say it like that but really that's the goal of a lot of people is they're looking out for themselves and with that comes lies and hypocrisy and so that's the generation that we live in and it wasn't just at

[14:29] David's time but it's something that's ongoing now so for him to say guard us from this generation forever makes sense because it's not his generation but it's ongoing with us we deal with that as well and then in verse eight it being on every side the wicked prowl you know it's all around us you know it isn't something that decreases and we know that the world is getting worse and not better that's just a happy thought to think about on this Friday night isn't it but really what David wants to say through all this is to tell us the truth about what's going on and the fact that God's promises are there to hold us up even those times where we feel burdened down with grief we feel burdened down like everyone is against us but God sees us there

[15:29]  God knows that we're there and he's able to lift us up and that's what he's able to guard us against knowing what is out in the world so the point of all that as I went through it was to cling to the words of God because that's what's what's whole that's what's pure and true and it's the words of men that are not and it's so easy to think about what men say and what they feel and how you know they affect us how we're doing well towards men but to keep God's word in view as what truly matters is will benefit us the most