Faith's Confession in a World of Lies Text: Psalm 116:10-11
Introduction: The Hard School of Honesty
We live in an age that prizes authenticity, or at least a very polished performance of it. Our culture is obsessed with "speaking your truth," which usually means venting your subjective feelings as though they were objective reality. But the Bible has a far more robust and rugged understanding of what it means to speak the truth, especially when under immense pressure. The Christian is not called to speak his truth, but rather to speak The Truth, even when his circumstances are screaming that truth is a lie and God has forgotten him.
The book of Psalms is God's inspired prayer book, and it is brutally honest. It does not give us sentimental greeting card verses for people who have it all together. It gives us the raw, desperate, and faithful cries of men who were acquainted with grief, sorrow, and betrayal. These prayers are not offered up in a sterile sanctuary with perfect mood lighting. They are often prayed from the battlefield, the sickbed, or the depths of profound discouragement. And in this, they teach us how to be honest with God, and how to be honest about the world, without surrendering to unbelief.
In our text today, the psalmist gives us two declarations made from the crucible of affliction. The first is a statement of defiant faith. The second is a statement of profound disillusionment with mankind. These are not contradictory; they are two sides of the same coin. True faith, the kind that holds on in the dark, must necessarily have its illusions about the world shattered. In order to trust God fully, you must first learn that you cannot trust in man. This is a hard lesson, but it is an essential one. It is the lesson that strips us of all our self-reliance and worldly props, leaving us with nothing and no one but God Himself. And that is a very good place to be.
The Text
I believed when I said,
“I am greatly afflicted.”
I said in my alarm,
“All men are liars.”
(Psalm 116:10-11 LSB)
Faith Speaks (v. 10)
The psalmist begins with a declaration that the apostle Paul will later pick up and carry like a banner.
"I believed when I said, 'I am greatly afflicted.'" (Psalm 116:10)
The apostle Paul quotes this very line in his second letter to the Corinthians. He says, "But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, 'I BELIEVED, THEREFORE I SPOKE,' we also believe, therefore we also speak" (2 Corinthians 4:13). This is a foundational principle of the Christian life. True faith is not a silent, private sentiment. Faith has a voice. Faith speaks. What you truly believe in your heart will inevitably come out of your mouth. Heart belief is connected to the tongue.
But notice what the psalmist says in his faith. He does not say, "I believed, therefore I said, 'Everything is fine.'" He says, "I am greatly afflicted." This is not the prosperity gospel. This is not stoicism. This is not denial. This is biblical realism. His faith does not erase his affliction; it enables him to speak honestly about it while still clinging to God. He is not pretending his troubles are not real. They are very real. He is "greatly afflicted." The sorrows of death had encompassed him, the pangs of Sheol had laid hold of him (v. 3). This is not a minor inconvenience. This is gut-wrenching, soul-crushing trouble.
And yet, in the midst of it, he says, "I believed." Believed what? He believed what he had just recounted in the previous verses. He believed that God is gracious and righteous, that our God is merciful (v. 5). He believed that the Lord preserves the simple (v. 6). He believed that God had heard his voice and his supplications (v. 1). His belief was not in the absence of trouble, but in the character of God in the midst of trouble. This is the spirit of faith. It looks at the overwhelming evidence of the circumstances, acknowledges it for what it is, and then speaks a greater truth over it. The affliction is great, but God is greater.
This is a crucial lesson for us. We are often tempted to think that faith means pretending we are not hurting. But that is not faith; it is a lie. Faith is what allows you to look your great affliction square in the eye and still confess that God is good. Faith is what enables you to preach to your own soul, as the psalmist does: "Return to your rest, O my soul, for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you" (v. 7). You speak the truth of God's character to the reality of your pain.
Hasty Disillusionment (v. 11)
From the crucible of his affliction, the psalmist makes a second, more startling declaration.
"I said in my alarm, 'All men are liars.'" (Psalm 116:11)
He prefaces this by saying he said it "in my alarm," or as some translations render it, "in my haste." This was a conclusion reached under extreme duress. He was in deep trouble, and in that trouble, he looked around for help, for comfort, for a reliable word, and he found none. Everyone let him down. Every promise was broken. Every support failed. And in his panic and pain, he makes a sweeping, cynical generalization: "All men are liars."
Now, was he correct? In one sense, yes. The Scriptures are clear about the universal sinfulness and unreliability of man. Jeremiah says the human heart is "deceitful above all things, and desperately sick" (Jeremiah 17:9). Paul, quoting the Psalms, says "there is none righteous, no, not one... their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive" (Romans 3:10, 13). Compared to the utter faithfulness of God, every man is a liar. God's Word is the fixed point of reality; everything else is shifting sand.
However, the psalmist himself qualifies the statement. He said it "in his haste." This indicates that while the statement contains a profound truth about fallen humanity, it was spoken from a place of personal woundedness and panic, not calm theological reflection. It is the cry of a man who has been betrayed. It is the bitter conclusion of someone who put his hope in men and had that hope crushed. It is easy to become cynical when you are greatly afflicted. It is easy to lash out and condemn everyone when you have been let down by someone.
But this hasty, painful cry sets the stage for the ultimate answer. The psalmist felt the full weight of human unfaithfulness. He was pushed to the very limit, to the point where he despaired of all human help. And it is at this exact point that God's faithfulness shines most brightly. The psalmist's despair over man becomes the black velvet on which the diamond of God's grace is displayed.
And this points us directly to the gospel. The psalmist's hasty cry, "All men are liars," was ultimately and finally answered by God. Because into this world of liars, God sent a Man who was not a liar. God sent a Man who was the Truth. Jesus Christ is the one Man who never lied, who never broke a promise, who never failed, who never let anyone down who truly trusted in Him. He is "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6).
The psalmist's extremity reveals the world's deepest need. We need a man who is not a liar. We need a savior who is utterly reliable. The universal falsehood of men creates the category, the desperate need, for the one true Man, Jesus Christ. So, the psalmist's hasty generalization, born of affliction, is actually a profound, unconscious prophecy. All men are indeed liars, and that is precisely why we need a divine Savior who became a man to rescue us from our lies and bring us to the God who cannot lie.
Conclusion: From Haste to Worship
The psalmist does not stay in the pit of his cynical despair. His experience of man's failure drives him back to God's faithfulness. The very next verse asks the central question of the Christian life: "What shall I render to the LORD for all His benefits toward me?" (v. 12). His experience of human lies did not make him abandon faith; it clarified it. It purified it. It drove him from trusting in the broken cisterns of human reliability to the fountain of living waters.
This is God's purpose in our afflictions and in our disappointments with others. He allows the props to be knocked out from under us so that we will learn to stand on the solid rock. He allows us to be wounded by the lies of men so that we will run to the one who is Truth Himself. He brings us to the point of saying in our haste, "All men are liars," so that we might learn to say in settled, joyful faith, "But God is true."
Your faith will be tested. You will be greatly afflicted. People will let you down. And in your alarm, you may be tempted to despair. But let that experience do its sanctifying work. Let it teach you to speak honestly about your pain while believing steadfastly in God's goodness. Let the failure of men drive you to the faithfulness of Christ. For it is only when we have learned the hard lesson that all men are liars that we can truly rejoice in the Man who is the Truth, and who has set us free.