Psalm 12:5-8

What is our response to difficult circumstance?

• When the world seems to be crumbling down around us, when our beliefs are consistently being challenged, when we feel as if we are about to crumble... where do we turn?  Where do we find our hope?
• Psalm 12 is one of the many, many Psalms that shows us one of the most God honoring human beings response to these sorts of circumstances.
• And the study of David’s life and his response to life’s circumstances are highly important and relevant to us today.
• In fact, I would go so far as to say that, other than Jesus, David is the most important human being in scripture to consistently study.
• Why?  More has been written about David than any other Bible Character:

Abraham and Joseph - 14 Chapters

Jacob - 11 Chapters

Elijah - 10 Chapters

David - 66 Chapters not including the Psalms or the 59 references to his life in the New Testament.

• This is no accident.  There was something about this man’s life and this man’s heart that God wanted to draw our attention to.
• And I think, in relationship to the Psalms, one of the primary things that God wants us to see and to emulate is David’s response to difficult circumstances.

Psalm 12 can be broken down into two parts.

1.  vs.1-4 - The apparent hopelessness of David’s circumstances.
2.  vs.5-8 - The source for hope in the midst of hopelessness.

We’ve discussed vs.1-4... now I’d like to draw our attention to part 2, David’s source for hope.

And it begins in vs.5

• What does David do here in vs.5?  David quotes God.  He refers to four passages of scripture here, three from the Psalms and one from Isaiah.
• I think that it’s important to note that David doesn’t use a direct quote from any single Biblical text.
• God had never said these words in this order in any other recorded place in all of scripture... and I think that this was intentional on the part of David here.
• David is not speaking for God here... instead he’s communicating to the reader the necessity of a personal  and intimate knowledge of the Lord.
• See, the source for David’s hope, in all things, was God.  It was based on his knowledge of and relationship to God.
• In reading any one of the 70 or so Psalms that David pens in this book... not once do you see David call out to God timidly... not once do we witness David unsure of whether or not he should be speaking to God a certain way or asking God to do certain things.
• And while many of the Psalms end without a definitive resolution to David’s surrounding circumstances David’s conclusion is always the same: “My circumstances seem hopeless but You’re God and You’re in control and You’re just... so I wait and have hope.”

And David’s reason for this resolve is found in the next two verses, vs.6-7

• David’s resolve is in the tried and tested truth of God’s Words.

• Now, last week we discussed how you and I can have confidence in the idea that God has preserved His Words, through the process of time and translation.

• And, it is because God is the one responsible for the preservation of His truth that you and I can say, with confidence, that the Bible that we have today is accurate... it has accurately recorded God’s message to human beings from Moses (or Job for those of you with a little Bible chronology background) to John the Apostle.

• That being said, what we need to need to be able to understand and apply here in this text is that, when difficulty and challenges come... and they will come... our hope and our survival will be based on our knowledge and understanding of who God is and what God is doing as it has been revealed to us through what God has said.

• A very common philosophy for religious people in general is to turn to the Bible for topical application that is relevant to our current circumstances.

• And because we have so many wonderful Bible study tools at our disposal what ends up happening, in so many God followers lives, is that we begin to rely on what I like to call a quick fix faith.

• Here’s what I mean by that, and understand that I’m not saying this is a wrong way to search for God’s truth to speak into our lives and our circumstances... what I’m saying is that this method was never meant to be our Modus Operondai, our M.O., our go to response to difficult circumstances.

• God gave us His Word so that, as we apply ourselves, we might grow in our understanding and application of it’s truths.

• So... example... Let’s say someone is struggling over this topic of divorce... maybe it’s personal, maybe it’s because of a friend or a loved one... but whatever the reason they are looking for a way to respond to this topic in their lives.

• And so they research... they do a word search on “divorce” through one of the many wonderful Bible study tools online.

• Then they do a topical search online to see if there are any books about the topic or random blogs that are available to read.

• Maybe they talk to a pastor or a godly friend that they respect.

• And this isn’t bad... this is excellent and it’s certainly many, many steps ahead of what most people would do.  This takes initiative.

• But, for the individual who is serious about consistently living a godly life, about responding to their circumstances in a god honoring way... it’s not enough.

• You know as well as I do that some times you just can’t wait until after you’ve done all of the necessary research before you respond to some things.

• Life doesn’t always work that way, you can’t package it into this nice little formula every time.

David draws our attention to this very point in the last verse, vs.8

• Evil’s everywhere, wickedness is everywhere... and the ability to make immediate, God honoring decisions is an absolute necessity in the life of anyone who intends to be used of God.
• We have been given a gift... an amazing gift.  We’ve been given the completed Word of God.

How are we using it?

• Understand that there is no down time in the pursuit of godliness.
• While we experience periods of life where we are fortunate enough to be in between spiritual crisis and/or difficult circumstance we need to be more intentional with our Bible reading, we need to seek a deeper and more intimate knowledge of God.
• Like David, we need to know God words in such a way that we are able to speak and respond with God’s heart in confidence.
• We need to prepare ourselves to respond in those circumstances where we don’t have the luxury of time.