A Place of Safety

Where is our safe place?

 

Let’s ponder Psalm 12.

 

Help, Yahweh, for the godly man ceases to be, for the faithful disappear from among the sons of men. They speak falsehood to one another; with flattering lips and with a double heart they speak.

 

May Yahweh cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that speaks great things; who have said, “With our tongue we will prevail; our lips are our own; who is lord over us?”

 

The fall of mankind from God’s glory into sin and death was precipitated by a lie spoken and a lie believed. It seems that we will consummate our mutual destruction by an orgy of lies. We simply do not, and it seems cannot, tell the truth. Lying is so inculcated into our way of life that we disparage those who tell the truth, who are honest with us; we exalt those who lie – as long as the lies are to our liking and appeal to our self-interest.

 

We do not say what we mean nor mean what we say, but it is no longer a problem – it is a way of life. We seek to prevail with our words, we think “our lips are our own” and we proclaim ourselves lords and masters.

 

Life is both simple and complex, and to truthfully engage in life requires both the simplicity of truth and the complexity of truth.

 

“Because of the devastation of the afflicted, because of the groaning of the needy, now I will arise,” says Yahweh; “I will set him in the safety for which he longs.”

 

If you are distressed by our lying society, God sees you, God hears you, and God will set you in safety; a safety of peace, a safety of security, a safety of hope, a safety of confidence, a safety that transcends the lying chaos of this world.

 

What is this safety? What is our safety? Consider what follows in our psalm:

 

The words of Yahweh are pure words; as silver tried in a furnace on the earth, refined seven times. You, O Yahweh, will keep them; You will preserve him from this generation forever.

 

The Word of the Living God is our safety, our assurance, our peace, our refuge. When the world is filled with lies, our God fills us with Truth. While the world speaks with a double heart, our God speaks with steadfastness and immutability. While the people of the world use their words to manipulate and have power over others, the Word of our God comes to heal us, save us, set us free, and make us His sons and daughters in Jesus Christ.

 

To be sure, God will refine us in His Word; and in a sense it is as if He is refining His Word in us. God will turn the heat up within us to purify us, in and through His Word.  Until we are tried by His Word, we do not know what within us is real and what is not real. Until the furnace is heated seven times hotter, we do not know the dross and impurities within us.

 

Let us not forget that while God gave Joseph His Word through dreams, that that Word was to be tried before it was fulfilled. “…He himself [Joseph] was laid in irons; until the time that His Word came to pass, the Word of Yahweh refined him” (Psalms 105:18b – 19).

 

We find our safety in God’s Word, and we find increasing safety as the white-hot work of the Word transforms us into the image of Jesus Christ. Let us remember that when our Father disciplines us that He does so in order that we may share in His holiness (Hebrews 12:10).

 

Our psalm concludes:

 

The wicked strut about on every side when vileness is exalted among the sons of men.

 

This is certainly a picture of our society, our nation, our institutions, our politics, our entertainment, our education, our economic policies – vileness permeates our culture, our thinking, our behavior – we call good evil and evil good. However, we need not fear – the world is the world is the world and our Father will bring the things of this world to nothing. The sons and daughters of the Living God have a glorious future with light and life and beauty and joy and goodness – a future in which we celebrate the pure and kind and gentle and peaceful.

 

Let us increasingly learn to live in God’s Word and to allow God’s Word to live in us – and we will find a safety and security and peace that passes all comprehension. (Philippians 4:7; 1 Peter 1:1 – 9).