Psalm 12—A Pure And Protecting Word (Part 2): Application

by on December 7, 2024 | Comment

This series walks through Psalm 12 and its teaching that God’s Word is the pure and protecting source of guidance and deliverance. Part one outlined the three-act structure that developed the problem (1–2), proposed David’s solution (3–4), and presented God’s Word as the real answer (5–8). The problem was that liars abounded about David, so much so that it seemed as if all the godly and faithful had disappeared. David thought the best way forward was for God to wipe out all these deceivers. Ultimately, however, God’s Word is revealed to be the pure and protecting shield to guard us. We cannot rest in our wisdom but must rely on the Lord to act as he has said.

This article considers what we might learn from Psalm 12 for application in the Christian life—how it instructs us practically and how it takes us to Christ.

Lessons for Prayer

How might David’s prayer teach us about the Christian life? One way is that it leads us to consider with David the genuine solutions to the problems we experience in the world. It recenters us on where our hope lies and reminds us about the limitations of our own wisdom in comparison to God’s ability to act.

To get at this application, we need to grab hold of this psalm’s three acts again. The first act paints a situation: the world was full of liars. That problem remains a feature of the world today. Regardless of whom we might find believable, the world is full of competing messages fighting for our allegiance. Most of them promise something good if you will only buy into what they are selling.

The liar problem in the first act has its foil in the third act in God’s pure and protecting Word. In other words, there is a conflict about speaking. Liars speak to further their own cause to the detriment of others. God speaks to defend, to vindicate, and to guard his people.

Out of this conflict comes the first lesson for the Christian life. We learn that God’s Word is the source of ultimate security against those who opposed truth and goodness. The resolution to lies proliferating through the world is that God would speak (5) and act to guard his people (6–8). God’s Word is the reality that trumps whatever liars might say.

On the one hand, this psalm highlights the conflict between the speech of liars and that of the Lord, but another contrast also features. This second contrast is between what David thinks ought to happen and where he knows the ultimate solution is to be found. This contrast appears between the second act containing David’s perceived solution and the third act affirming God’s sure solution.

Sometimes we think we know the answer to a problem we see in the world. But we need to rest assured that God is and that he will ultimately take care of it in the best way. David thought he knew the best solution. He suggested it to the Lord. But he did not press that proposed solution as if God would have failed him if he followed another course of action.

Once, in a prayer meeting, a dear lady was concerned about someone who was publicly mocking Christianity. In her desperation to see that stopped, she asked that God might even kill him. That is about the sum of what David asked God to do about these liars. At the same time, when we think we have a clear notion of the only way to solve a terrible predicament, we need to be open to the fact that the Lord might have better wisdom and a better way forward than we assume.

When we are ready to despair about our situation, we may have ideas about how it should be solved. But the Lord’s words are pure. They bring victory to the downtrodden. His Word guards us from this (and every) generation. John Calvin explained:

Let the faithful, therefore, in our day, not be unduly discouraged at the melancholy sight of a very corrupt and confused state of the world; but let them consider that they ought to bear it patiently, seeing their condition is just like that of David in past time. And it is to be observed, that, when David calls upon God for succor, he encourages himself in the hope of obtaining it from this, that there was no uprightness among men; so that from his example we may learn to betake ourselves to God when we see nothing around us but black despair.1

Even when we can see only our way forward, we should not lose heart. The Lord has the solutions. He will speak to guard us and to carry history toward Christ’s return. We should not confuse our solutions with God’s Word either, as if what we think must happen must be the way that God will provide. That confusion of our solutions with his is the quickest way to despair. God’s solutions however are his pure and protecting speech to guard his people.

Christ in Psalm 12

How do we see Christ in this psalm? We might situate this psalm in the events of Luke 22:47–71 where Jesus was arrested and put on trial by the religious leaders of his day. During the proceedings of that kangaroo court, Christ was surrounded by those who lied about him to promote their own ambition. Just as king David wrote Psalm 12 amid a trial of his own, Christ is the true messianic king who rightly prayed this prayer while liars surrounded him trying to condemn him.

David indeed thought he had the right solution to the problem. Christ’s disciples, especially Peter with his sword, rose to take obvious action to solve the problem based on their own wisdom. Christ, however, leaned upon what God had said. He knew that God would act rightly and best to resolve the evils before him.

We also know that Christ is the fulfillment of this psalm as we, God’s people, might pray it. It is in Christ that we will find our final and true deliverance from all that troubles us in this age. We cannot see that deliverance as clearly as we might like right now, as troubles continue to swirl around us. Yet one day our faith will give way to sight when Christ returns.

Christ died to forgive our sins and to provide our reconciliation with God. He rose from the grave as a pledge of our everlasting life, that all joined to him by faith will follow him into glorified, resurrection life. But he will also return to judge the world and deliver his saints. We look forward to that day of sight.

Notes

  1. John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries, 22 vol. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009), 4.2:171.

© Harrison Perkins. All Rights Reserved.

You can find this whole series here.

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