PSALM 12:5–8 Pure Words
READ: PSALM 12:5–8 (2 PETER 1:16–21) V. 6 “The words of the LORD are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times.”
Nowadays we are bombarded with words, words, words. We live with product commercials, Internet sites, sound bites, news clips, tweets, blogs, emails, and so on. Stacks of information, much of it half-truths or like the so-called fake news, are outright falsehoods. And we need to find our way through it all. Merchandise is described so as to lure people to buy. The news media puts its own spin on what it reports. Politicians have their own way of speaking, which often helps them to say a lot without actually saying anything.
Also today we can understand David’s complaint about a prevailing culture of lies, flattering speech, and empty boasting, can’t we? With that whole flood of words washing over us every day, how can we know what the truth is? Where do we go to learn the real truth?
David knows where to find the truth: in the word of God. That word is as pure and precious as silver refined seven times in a crucible because it comes from the holy and almighty LORD, written by his servants as a testimony for his people. Those pure words stand in contrast to the impure words of man—his deceit, lies, and flattery.
The apostle Peter makes a similar contrast between God’s words and the evil words of men when he says, “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation” (1 Peter 2:2). That pure spiritual milk is the word of God. When we drink in that word, it cleanses us of the poison of man’s words, of lies and falsehood, deception and hypocrisy. The Bible guides us to the truth and in the truth.
In fact, God saved his own people by sending his word in the flesh, Jesus Christ (John 1:14). He is the truth of God in person (John 14:6). He worked salvation from the deceit and falsehood around us and in us by overcoming Satan, the “father of lies” (John 8:44). His death and resurrection re-established the truth of God’s kingdom on earth. Pontius Pilate asked him at his trial, “What is truth?” (John 18:38). The truth is God’s word about and through the Lord Jesus Christ. If you want to know the truth in this world full of words today, you need to listen to his gospel!
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