Wed, 1 November, 2006: Today’s Bible readings.
1 In my distress I called to the LORD,
and he answered me.
2 Deliver me, O LORD,
from lying lips,
from a deceitful tongue.
This is the first of the Psalms of Ascent. (Psalms 120 – 134 all have the superscript: “A Psalm of Ascent”.) We don’t know the circumstances of this Psalm, but we know the Psalmist is facing verbal opposition by someone. We see in that someone is lying about him.
What do we learn from this?
People can greatly harm us with lies. They can lie to you, and they can lie about you.
They can lie to you: They can flatter you to influence you. They can make you think they are your friends by saying things to your face that are not what they really think. They can keep you from knowing the truth of things.
They can also tell others things about you that are not true. They can spread slander and gossip to ruin your reputation.
Notice that verse one is past tense. This is what happened to the psalmist. He was distressed and he prayed. God heard his prayer.
Verse two is present tense. It is what he prayed. In his distress, he prayed to be delivered from the people with lying lips. Notice that the psalmist talk to others about the person with lying lips. He talked to God.
It good to remain silent to man and to pray to God when slandered because you can’t undo what the people have said. You can’t speak to everyone who has heard the report. Your protestations will sound hollow and unconvincing to many. So in most cases, prayer is our best recourse when slandered. Let God deal with the slanderer.
Proverbs 26:2 “Like a sparrow in its flitting, like a swallow in its flying, a curse that is causeless does not alight.”
God promises that those false things that are said about you will ultimately fail.
Where is Christ in this passage?
Notice that if we follow the psalmist’s advice in prayer, we will be doing what Jesus Christ told us to do in the Lord’s Prayer. Our Lord taught us to ask God for deliverance. Matthew 6:13 “…but deliver us from evil.” The psalmist also teaches us to ask for God to deliver us from the one who is working evil.
