The Tyranny of the Autonomous Tongue Text: Psalm 12:1-4
Introduction: When the Guardrails Are Gone
We live in a time of managed chaos, a time when the dictionary has been thrown into the woodchipper and everyone is encouraged to pick out the confetti pieces that best suit their current emotional state. Truth is no longer considered a fixed point, a North Star by which to navigate. Rather, it is treated as a personal accessory, something you coordinate with your outfit for the day. And when a culture does this, when it severs its connection to the transcendent Word of God, the first and most obvious casualty is the spoken word between men.
This is precisely the situation David describes in Psalm 12. This is not a psalm about a bad neighborhood; it is a psalm about a collapsing culture. It is a lament over a society where the very currency of communication, truthful speech, has been debased. When faithfulness disappears from public life, it is not because everyone suddenly decided to become a villain. It is because the standard for what constitutes faithfulness has been abandoned. The guardrails are gone, and the whole society is careening toward the cliff edge, chattering all the way.
David looks around and sees a world where piety is a performance, faithfulness is a memory, and the public square is dominated by the smooth, oily sounds of flattery and the arrogant boasts of self-sovereignty. This is a world where words are not used to reveal truth, but to conceal intent and manipulate outcomes. It is a world where the tongue, that small rudder that directs the whole course of a life, has declared its independence from God. And as we will see, a tongue that declares itself autonomous is a tongue that has enlisted in the service of tyranny.
This psalm is a cry to God for deliverance, but it is also a diagnosis. It shows us what happens when men forget the Creator/creature distinction. It shows us the inevitable social rot that sets in when men declare, "Our lips are our own; who is lord over us?" This is the anthem of the fool, the creed of the rebel, and it is the background noise of our own generation. But this psalm also points us to the only possible rescue: the intervention of the God whose words are not only true, but are the very foundation of reality itself.
The Text
Save, O Yahweh, for the holy man ceases to be,
For the faithful disappear from among the sons of men.
They speak worthlessness to one another; With a flattering lip 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?”
(Psalm 12:1-4 LSB)
The Great Disappearance (v. 1)
The psalm opens with a desperate plea, an emergency call to Heaven based on an alarming observation on earth.
"Save, O Yahweh, for the holy man ceases to be, For the faithful disappear from among the sons of men." (Psalm 12:1)
David is not saying that there are literally no godly men left. We know from the story of Elijah that God always has His remnant, even when the prophet feels utterly alone. This is what we call phenomenological language. It is what it looks like from the ground. When you look at the culture, at the men who lead it, at the voices who shape it, the godly man seems to be an extinct species. The faithful have vanished from the public square. They may exist in private, but their influence in the broader world has evaporated.
The "holy man" here is the hasid, the one who is loyal to the covenant. The "faithful" are the emunim, those who are reliable, trustworthy, and true. These are the kind of men who form the ligaments of a healthy society. They are the men whose word is their bond, whose commitments hold fast. When these men disappear, society begins to disintegrate. Contracts become meaningless, promises are disposable, and trust evaporates. You are left with a nation of smoke and mirrors.
This is not a call for a quiet, monastic retreat. It is a cry for God to intervene in history, to save the situation. David understands that the health of a nation is directly tied to the public presence of godly character. When that character vanishes, the only thing to do is to appeal to the God who alone can restore it. He is not wringing his hands in despair; he is lifting them in supplication. He sees the disease and immediately calls for the Physician.
The Mechanics of Deceit (v. 2)
In verse two, David moves from the general observation to the specific mechanism of the decay. How does this disappearance of the faithful manifest itself? It manifests in how people talk.
"They speak worthlessness to one another; With a flattering lip and with a double heart they speak." (Psalm 12:2 LSB)
They speak "worthlessness," or vanity. Their words are empty, like a bubble. They have no substance, no weight, because they are disconnected from reality. This is the natural result when a society rejects the Logos, the ultimate Word who gives meaning to all our small words. When you reject God, your speech becomes unmoored. It becomes a tool, not for communication, but for manipulation.
And the primary tool of this manipulation is the "flattering lip." Flattery is the art of telling someone what they want to hear in order to get what you want to have. It is weaponized praise. It is the opposite of true exhortation, which speaks the truth in love for the good of the other. Flattery speaks lies in self-interest for the exploitation of the other. It builds a world of illusions, where everyone is wonderful and no one is accountable.
And where does this flattery come from? It comes from a "double heart." Literally, a heart and a heart. This is the man who thinks one thing and says another. He has one heart for his private, real opinions and another heart for his public, curated speech. He is a walking civil war. He is not integrated. He lacks integrity, which comes from the word "integer," meaning a whole number. The man with a double heart is a fraction of a man. He is disintegrated. This duplicity is the engine of the whole corrupt system. It is a society where no one says what they actually mean, and everyone knows it.
A Prayer for Divine Surgery (v. 3)
Faced with this epidemic of deceit, David prays a prayer that would make most modern evangelicals blush. He calls for divine judgment.
"May Yahweh cut off all flattering lips, The tongue that speaks great things;" (Psalm 12:3 LSB)
This is an imprecatory prayer. David is asking God to perform a kind of spiritual surgery. To "cut off" the flattering lips. This is not a prayer born of personal vindictiveness. It is a prayer for public justice. David understands that such speech is not a harmless foible; it is a poison that is killing the nation. He is asking God to remove the cancer.
Notice the connection he makes. He moves from "flattering lips" to "the tongue that speaks great things." Flattery is the necessary precursor to arrogance. First, you flatter others to get your way. Then, once you have power, you begin to flatter yourself. The tongue that starts by speaking smooth things ends by speaking great, boastful things. It is a progression. The man who will not submit his tongue to the truth of God will inevitably end up worshipping the sound of his own voice.
This prayer recognizes that the problem of evil speech is not something that can be solved with a better education program or a public service announcement. It is a theological problem that requires a divine solution. Only God can silence the arrogant and cut out the rot of deceit.
The Rebel's Creed (v. 4)
Verse four is the climax of the diagnosis. David quotes the wicked. He lets us hear their mission statement, their declaration of independence.
"Who have said, 'With our tongue we will prevail; Our lips are our own; who is lord over us?'" (Psalm 12:4 LSB)
Here we have the very heart of rebellion. It is a three-part creed. First, confidence in their own power: "With our tongue we will prevail." They believe that reality can be shaped by their rhetoric. They believe that if they can control the narrative, they can control the world. They see words not as a means of conforming to the truth, but as a tool for creating their own truth. This is the essence of sorcery, the belief that incantations can bend reality to the human will.
Second, a declaration of autonomy: "Our lips are our own." This is a direct denial of the doctrine of creation. If God made you, He owns you. All of you. That includes your liver, your kneecaps, and your tongue. But these men are practical atheists. They believe they are self-owned. They are asserting property rights over a part of their body that God fashioned and sustains. It is a ludicrous claim, like a clay pot telling the potter that its handle is its own.
Third, and finally, the explicit rejection of all authority: "who is lord over us?" This is the ultimate question of every sinner. It is the question the serpent tempted Eve with in the garden. Can you be your own god? Can you be the one to define good and evil? Can you be the ultimate lord of your own life? This question is a denial of the Creator/creature distinction. It is an attempt to storm the throne of Heaven and declare oneself sovereign.
This is the root of the problem. The flattering lips and the double heart are just the symptoms. The disease is this radical, blasphemous autonomy. When men believe their lips are their own, they will inevitably use them to lie, to flatter, to boast, and to tear down. The only hope for a society drowning in such lies is the intervention of the God who is, in fact, Lord over all.