Psalm 12:6 (NLT)
The Lord’s promises are pure, like silver refined in a furnace, purified seven times over.
This psalm starts with a lament over the general degradation of the author’s culture. The “godly are disappearing” and it seemed as if “the faithful had vanished from the earth” (Ps. 12:1). Do you ever feel that way about life in the 21stcentury? One of the many blessings when spending time in the Book of Psalms is the raw honesty that is exhibited as David and a few other authors pour out their anger and pain and disappointment while wrestling to embrace and believe and live by God’s words and character and promises. It’s a battle every Believer must face…if we are being honest.
In the face of the widespread ungodliness…both near and far…we must choose what narrative we are to believe. The lies of the world, the flesh (our own), and the devil are ever-present and tempt us away from the Rock of our Salvation. They try to drive us to despair…to depression and anxiety…and to turn from the promises of God to the empty and enslaving whispers of fallen man and “life under the sun” (Ecc. 1:3). In the face of all of that, the psalm writer turns to the only place he can turn for an answer that is true and abides forever: God’s Word.
The English theologian Thomas Horne notes that the “words of Jehovah are holy in his precepts, just in his laws, gracious in his promises, significant in his institutions, true in his narrations, and infallible in his predictions. What are thousands of gold and silver compared to the treasures of the sacred page!” Most Christians would agree with his assessment, to be sure, but do we choose to live by them? Trust them? Put the weight of our lives on them? It’s one thing to give the right answer in Sunday School, but quite another to actually live it out, especially when life is not going as we had hoped it would.
Del Tackett is the creator of an excellent worldview curriculum called The Truth Project and one of his main questions for his audience is, “Do you really believe that what you say you believe is really real?” You may want to re-read that. The challenge he presents is this: We make a profession of faith, but do we actually invest our lives in it? Do we really believe God’s promises “are pure, like silver refined in a furnace,” and a present and future reality that will always achieve victory on our behalf and for God’s glory? The psalm writer chose to believe, and it overwhelmed even the darkness of his days as the godly were “fast disappearing” and it seemed as if the faithful had “vanished from the earth.” What are you choosing to believe?
