the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 3 of 5
Psalms 12:1-8
This psalm expresses the suffering of a soul stricken with a sense of the unrighteousness which surrounds him. David, who wrote it, had to experience this personally on many, many occasions. The duplicity and jealous hatred of Saul (1 Samuel 18:17 . . .), the idle intentions of the inhabitants of Keilah (1 Samuel 23:12), the double treason of the Ziphites (1 Samuel 23:19 and 1 Samuel 26:1) and the even greater treachery of Doeg the Edomite (1 Samuel 22:9-10), then Nabal’s contemptuous ingratitude (1 Samuel 25:10-11) — all of these could not fail to have their effect upon David. Certainly in every circumstance he was able to prove God’s comforting reply, "I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him" (v. 5; cf. Psalms 10:5). But his own standard of truth was by no means perfect (see 1 Samuel 20:6; 1 Samuel 21:2 . . .).
On the other hand, the holiness of the Lord Jesus rendered Him fully sensitive to the duplicity and cunning of His adversaries (of which Luke 20:20 gives us an example). The more a Christian walks in the light, the more he will suffer from the world’s corrupt atmosphere. How greatly then will his painful experience of the lying tongues of men, with their hypocrisy and pride (vv. 2, 3) make him appreciate by contrast the purity and practical value of the words of the LORD (v. 6). "Thy word is truth" (John 17:17; Psalms 119:140).
