A sermon preached at Covenant Presbyterian Church of Fort Smith, Arkansas on March 3, 2024.
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.
May the LORD cut off all flattering lips,
the tongue that makes great boasts,
those who say, “With our tongue we will prevail,
our lips are with us; who is master over us?”
“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.”
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.
On every side the wicked prowl,
as vileness is exalted among the children of man (Psalm 12).[1]
So the saying goes, “If you find the perfect church, don’t join it. You’ll ruin it!” But we join anyway, don’t we? This side of glory, no church is perfectly pure because we are sinners saved by God’s grace through faith in Christ alone. Whether a church is faithful (and therefore one you should join) rests not on the perfection of its members but that “the doctrine of the gospel is taught and embraced, ordinances administered, and public worship performed more or less purely.”[2] As our Confession defines it, the church is “the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation,” but universally it has been “sometimes more, sometimes less visible” and locally “more or less pure.” [3]
Any student of church history knows that the Westminster Assembly got it right when they said, “The purest churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error; and some have so degenerated, as to become no churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan. Nevertheless, there shall be always a church on earth, to worship God according to his will.”[4] In other words, if you’re concerned that there will be a day when the church will not be, don’t be. But if you’re concerned that there will be a day when a local church could degenerate into “synagogues of Satan,” do be. It’s happened before.
There have been times in history where the church taught other things, perhaps noble things, but not the gospel. There have been times when the church has embraced other things, even good things, but not the gospel. There have been times when the sacraments of the Lord’s Supper and baptism have been treated as merely liturgical ornaments rather than means of grace ordinances. There have been times when public worship has been nothing more than a gathering of spectators or an entertainment event rather than the reverent worship of the Lord our God. And when it happens, the church no longer sees sinners saved and saints sanctified but devolves into a graceless and therefore godless state of irrelevance.
The impact of this sad state radiates well beyond the church building walls. A culture without faithful churches is a dark one, because that means few if any Christians, who by their very presence serve as salt and light in a dark world (Matt. 5:13-16). This is of course a clarifying reminder for us to not lose focus, keep the gospel central, preach the Word, administer the sacraments, and keep our worship pure. Because: no church, no Christians, no salt and light.
But what if a culture were so devoid of the godly that you looked around and it seemed like you were all alone? How would it feel, and what would you do?
When the godly are gone
David feels like he is the last man standing, “the godly have disappeared; people of integrity have vanished” (12:1 NET). His lament sounds similar to Elijah, who after calling Israel to repentance and God rained down fire from heaven, who after exposing the religion of Baal as a fraud, received a death threat from the queen, ran for his life, and said to God,
“I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away” (1 Kings 19:10).
Of course, Elijah’s self-pity clouded his judgment, as it always does, but God graciously explained to him, “I still have left in Israel 7,000 followers who have not bowed their knees to Baal or kissed the images of him” (1 Kings 19:18 NET). It was the truth, but Elijah felt like he was the last of the godly in the land, and so does David.
Perhaps you know how he feels too, seemingly all alone in your circumstances. When you live your life for the Lord in this fallen world, you are sure to be alienated even ostracized for your Christian devotion. Maybe it’s at school, or work, or in your family, but if you live long enough and bold enough, you’ll experience it. So, what do you do, when it feels like the godly are gone? Don’t go it alone because you’re not. Instead, cry out, like David, praying for God’s provision.
“Prayer is,” as our Shorter Catechism explains, “an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies.”[5] But is it right to offer up “our desires unto God”? Isn’t that selfish, taking up prayer time when I could be praying for someone else. In the thirty-seventh psalm, David helps us with this answer: “Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Ps. 37:4). Unlike the unregenerate, as children of God we pray to our heavenly Father, desiring not the desires of our flesh but what pleases him. Asking that he help us when we feel all alone is a pleasing petition, because God is most glorified in us when we are most dependent upon him.
What we must avoid at all costs is self-pity and a victim mentality because both are contrary to the gospel, will cloud our perspective of God’s providence, and stymie our growth in grace. Instead, when you are persecuted for your faith, when you are shamed for your integrity, when you feel like you are the last one standing for Christ, set you mind on this truth: “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? … we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom. 8:31b – 32, 37). When the godly are gone, we must not cower in fear or defeat but look to the Lord, offering up our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, knowing as David did, that the Lord is our keeper and will guard us from evil today and forever.
When the truth is not told
What happens to speaking the truth when the godly are gone? What happens to words and their meaning when the faithful seem to have vanished from the land? Without the presence of those who are led by the Spirit of God, living according to the truth of his Word, one characteristic is the deterioration of substantive communication and the influence of propaganda. Commentator Derek Kidner describes it as “empty talk, smooth talk, and double talk” that manipulates rather than communicates.[6] David listens to those around him and hears only lies, “with flattering lips and a double heart” (2). Deception and hypocrisy are hidden behind their words.
To accept and adapt to lies and flattery is to demean truth. And yet the wicked argue, “With our tongue we will prevail, our lips are with us” (4). In the world of the wicked through their words the end justifies the means. But when lying is justified as strategy and flattery is justified as influence, you can be sure that a heart for God and his truth is far away. What they say reveals whom they really serve, boasting “who is master over us?” (4).
When the truth is not told, it is disturbing to every child of God, unless their conscience has been compromised by endless exposure to propaganda. The apostle Peter says that when Lot was living in Sodom among the wicked day after day, his righteous soul was tormented over the lawless deeds that he saw and heard (2 Pet. 2:8). Likewise, when we find ourselves among the wicked, while everyone around us may be content, we are tormented because the Spirit of truth resides within us. But over time, the absence of truth telling can wear you down, compromising your conscience, crippling your walk, contaminating your perspective, even grieving the Holy Spirit. Torment, indeed.
David has heard enough. Speaking truth with righteous indignation, he declares,
May the LORD cut off all flattering lips,
the tongue that makes great boasts (3).
He prays that God would do the equivalent of cutting their tongues out, because they will not speak the truth. He hears the empty words and falsehoods, the lack of sincerity and responsibility, and knows it is verbal vomit, that cheapens and corrodes true and meaningful communication. He doesn’t need to listen to it; he will not listen to it, and neither should we.
When surrounded by lies, we must go to the truth and immerse ourselves in it, looking and listening to God’s Word:
The words of the LORD are pure words,
like silver refined in a furnace on the ground,
purified seven times (6).
When we grow accustomed to listening to lies, it is easy to forget the purity of God’s Word. David uses the simile of silver, refined in a seven-fold process, perfect purity. Scripture is, as Jesus described it, literally “the truth” (John 17:17). In a world full of “empty talk, smooth talk, and double talk,” if we want to know the truth, we go to God’s breathed-out Word, that it may do its work, teaching, reproving, correcting, training us in righteousness, equipping us for every good work (2 Tim. 3:16-17).
When vileness is exalted
At a time when our culture seems to value less and less integrity in language, at a time when we seem to be dismissive of lies and flattery, it would be easy to disconnect what someone says from what he does. Blaise Pascal notes, “Man is nothing but insincerity, falsehood, and hypocrisy, both in regard to himself and in regard to others. He does not wish that he should be told the truth, he shuns saying it to others; and all these moods, so inconsistent with justice and reason, have their roots in his heart.”[7] This Jesus confirmed when he said, “out of the abundance of the heart [the] mouth speaks,” whether good or evil (Luke 6:45), because “what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart,” and “out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Matt. 15:18-19). In other words, when the truth is not told, vileness will be sure to follow, from head, to heart, to hands.
The Hebrew expression “vileness is exalted” connotes a flaunting or promotion of evil. While the wicked may prowl like a predator to plunder the helpless, you can be sure that they do not stay camouflaged. They relish exhibiting their evil ways to promote wickedness as the norm, and to encourage others to follow their deeds of debauchery. But what they flaunt is not the norm but perversion. Evil is not an alternative but an abomination, not an option but iniquity, not worthy of reward or even acceptance but eternal damnation.
Such is the sad state of a world where the godly are gone, where the truth is not told, where vileness is exalted. And if your attention is upon this world and its depravity, your perspective will grower darker by the day. But neither you nor I were redeemed to be world watchers but to look to the Lord. The believer’s perspective is always Christward. Paul confesses to the Corinthians, “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).
In looking to the Lord, we are not crying out for help in vain but to the One who died for us, even when we were yet sinners (Rom. 5:8). We listen not to the lies of the wicked but to the truth of the gospel. For, were it not for the grace of God, we would know neither his truth nor godliness. Had he not, by his Spirit, convinced us of our sin and misery, enlightened our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewed our wills, persuading and enabling us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel,[8] we would still be dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1). But because we know that he who began a good work in us will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:6), we look to the Lord, knowing he will keep us and guard us this day and forever.
[1] Unless referenced otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2001).
[2] “The Confession of Faith” 25.4, The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (Lawrenceville: PCA Christian Education and Publications, 2007), 126.
[3] Ibid., 25.2, 124-125.
[4] Ibid., 25.5, 127.
[5] “The Shorter Catechism” Q. 98, The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (Lawrenceville: PCA Christian Education and Publications, 2007), 400-401.
[6] Derek Kidner, Psalms 1-72, An Introduction and Commentary (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2008), 91-92.
[7] Blaise Pascal quoted in C.H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, Vol. I (New York: Association Press, 1913), 145.
[8] “The Shorter Catechism” Q. 31, The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (Lawrenceville: PCA Christian Education and Publications, 2007), 374-375.
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