The Anatomy of a Lie and the Justice of God Text: Psalm 5:9-10
Introduction: The War of the Words
We live in an age that is drowning in words. We are bombarded by them from every screen, every speaker, every billboard. And because of this constant deluge, we have become careless with them. We treat words as if they are disposable, malleable things, mere tools for self-expression or personal advancement. But the Bible will not let us get away with such a low view of language. Words are not toys; they are weapons. They are instruments of creation or destruction. God spoke, and the universe leaped into existence. The serpent spoke, and mankind fell into ruin. The entire cosmic conflict is, at its heart, a war of the words: the life-giving Word of God against the death-dealing words of the devil and his children.
In our text today, David, a man after God's own heart, is not dealing with abstract philosophical problems. He is dealing with enemies. Real enemies, with real mouths, speaking real, destructive words. And he does two things that our sentimental, effeminate generation finds deeply offensive. First, he provides a brutally honest diagnosis of the anatomy of fallen human speech. He puts the wicked under a microscope and shows us the rottenness within. Second, he prays for their destruction. He calls upon God to bring their wicked words and schemes crashing down upon their own heads. This is what theologians call an imprecatory prayer, a prayer for judgment.
Modern Christians tend to squirm when they encounter such prayers. We have been taught a soft-focus version of Jesus, a meek and mild Savior who would never offend anyone. We prefer the beatitudes to the woes. We like "love your enemies," but we skip over the part where Jesus calls the Pharisees a "brood of vipers." But David, and the Holy Spirit who inspired him, understood something we have forgotten: a love for righteousness necessitates a hatred for evil. A desire for God's kingdom to come means a desire for God's enemies to be defeated. These prayers are not petty, vindictive tantrums. They are the righteous cries of God's people, asking God to be God, to act in justice, and to vindicate His own name in a world that is in open, verbal rebellion against Him.
The Text
There is nothing reliable in their mouth;
Their inward part is destruction itself.
Their throat is an open grave;
They flatter with their tongue.
Hold them guilty, O God;
By their own devices let them fall!
In the abundance of their transgressions thrust them out,
For they are rebellious against You.
(Psalm 5:9-10 LSB)
The Pathology of Wicked Speech (v. 9)
David begins with a fourfold diagnosis of the speech of the ungodly. He moves from the outside in, from the mouth to the heart, and then back out again, showing how the inner corruption manifests itself in outward speech.
"There is nothing reliable in their mouth; Their inward part is destruction itself. Their throat is an open grave; They flatter with their tongue." (Psalm 5:9)
First, "There is nothing reliable in their mouth." The Hebrew word for reliable here means firm, established, or true. The speech of the wicked has no foundation. It is not anchored in reality because it is not anchored in the God of reality. Their words are shifting sand, designed not to communicate truth but to achieve an effect. This is the essence of postmodernism, where language has been detached from objective meaning and becomes a mere power play. But this is no new invention; it is the ancient sin of the serpent, who asked, "Did God really say?" When you abandon God as the ultimate reference point for truth, all your words become unreliable noise.
Second, David tells us why their mouths are unreliable: "Their inward part is destruction itself." The problem is not a slip of the tongue; it is a disease of the heart. Jesus said, "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matt. 12:34). The words are rotten because the source is rotten. The "inward part" is the seat of their desires, thoughts, and will, and it is filled with "destruction." The word here is the same one used for the calamities and woes that God brings in judgment. Their very nature is a disaster waiting to happen, a vortex of malice that seeks to pull everything good and true down into ruin with it.
Third, he gives us a startling metaphor: "Their throat is an open grave." The Apostle Paul quotes this very line in Romans 3 to prove the universal depravity of man. An open grave in the ancient world was a place of corruption, stench, and uncleanness. It was a gaping maw that consumed the living. This is what the throat of the wicked is like. The words that come out of it carry the stench of spiritual death. They are not life-giving words, but consuming words. Their conversation is not designed to build up, but to swallow, to devour reputations, to consume peace, to bury truth. It is a graphic image of how their speech creates a zone of death around them.
Fourth, David identifies the primary weapon: "They flatter with their tongue." We tend to think of flattery as a minor social vice, a bit of insincere buttering-up. The Bible sees it as something far more sinister. Flattery is a lie dressed in the robes of an angel. It is the smooth, polished surface of a deadly trap. The flatterer tells you what you want to hear in order to manipulate you. He uses praise not to honor you, but to disarm you. It is the language of the seducer (Prov. 2:16) and the court politician. It creates a world of illusion, where truth is sacrificed for advantage. The flatterer is a liar who has learned to smile while he does it.
The Prayer for Divine Justice (v. 10)
Having laid out the diagnosis, David moves to the prescription. And his prescription is not a call for dialogue, or tolerance, or finding common ground. His prescription is a prayer for the swift and decisive judgment of God.
"Hold them guilty, O God; By their own devices let them fall! In the abundance of their transgressions thrust them out, For they are rebellious against You." (Psalm 5:10 LSB)
First, he prays, "Hold them guilty, O God." This is a legal petition. David is bringing the wicked into God's courtroom and asking the righteous Judge to render the correct verdict. He is not asking God to do something unjust. He is asking God to declare what is already true: they are guilty. Our modern therapeutic culture hates the concept of guilt. It wants to replace it with syndromes and disorders. But the Bible insists on guilt, because guilt implies moral responsibility. And David knows that until God officially declares their guilt, their reign of verbal terror will continue.
Second, he prays for the means of their downfall: "By their own devices let them fall!" This is a prayer for poetic justice. David asks that the very schemes and plots they have devised against the righteous would become the instruments of their own ruin. Let them be caught in their own net. Let them fall into the pit they dug for others. This is a consistent pattern of God's judgment throughout Scripture. Haman builds a gallows for Mordecai and ends up hanging on it himself. The enemies of Daniel have him thrown into the lions' den, and they and their families end up as lion food. God loves to make the punishment fit the crime, and David is praying in accordance with God's revealed character.
Third, he prays for the finality of their removal: "In the abundance of their transgressions thrust them out." This is not a request for a slap on the wrist. The word for "thrust them out" is the same one used for driving out the Canaanites from the promised land. It is a prayer for decisive expulsion. David understands that their transgressions are not isolated mistakes; they are an "abundance," a great heap of rebellion. The cup of their iniquity is full, and it is time for them to be removed from the congregation of the righteous.
And notice the ultimate reason for this prayer. It is not fundamentally about David's personal feelings. The final clause gives the ultimate justification: "For they are rebellious against You." This is the key that unlocks all the imprecatory psalms. David's enemies are not just his personal foes; they are rebels against the throne of God. Their lying words, their destructive hearts, their flattering tongues are all acts of cosmic treason. They are attacking David because David is God's anointed king. Therefore, a prayer for their judgment is a prayer for God's honor to be vindicated. It is a prayer that says, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." And that necessarily means that the kingdoms of wicked men must fall.
Conclusion: Praying Against God's Enemies Today
So what are we to do with a passage like this? We are commanded in the New Testament to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Does this mean we must discard these psalms as sub-Christian? Not at all. We must do both. We pray for the conversion of our enemies, that God would grant them repentance and faith in Christ. We should desire their salvation.
But we must also pray for the defeat of their wicked plans. When abortionists plot the destruction of the unborn, we must pray that God would, by their own devices, let them fall. When godless ideologues seek to corrupt our children with their lies, we must pray that God would hold them guilty and thrust them out. When persecutors rage against the church of Jesus Christ, we must pray that God would arise and scatter His enemies.
To pray for God's justice is not unloving; it is an act of love for the victims of injustice. It is an act of love for the glory of God. We are not praying for personal revenge. We are handing the case over to the only righteous Judge. We are asking Him to do what He has promised to do: to bring down the proud, to protect His people, and to establish His righteous rule over all the earth.
The war of words continues today. The throat of the ungodly world is still an open grave, breathing out the stench of death through our media, our universities, and our halls of power. Let us not be naive. And let us not be silent. Let us speak the truth in love. And let us pray with the same robust, righteous, and God-honoring zeal that David shows us here, asking God to confound the speech of His enemies, so that all those who take refuge in Him may rejoice and sing for joy forever.