Daily Manna · Day 133 · May 13
Preserved Forever
“Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.”
Psalm 12 quotes the proud boast of the people it is complaining about: "With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?"
So this is not a gentle comfort psalm that happens to mention trouble. It opens with a cry: "Help, LORD; for the godly man ceaseth." It describes a society where flattery has become the normal way to talk: "with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak." People's words have quietly stopped meaning anything.
Then God answers, and notice what He does not promise. He never says the lying will stop. In the last verse, "The wicked walk on every side." What He promises is that He will act: "now will I arise, saith the LORD." And His own words are different from the ones all around: "The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times." So there are two kinds of speech in this psalm, and only one of them has been tested by fire.
Verse seven is where the keeping happens: "thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever." God keeps His people safe from that generation while they still live in the middle of it. The wicked are still walking around in the very next verse, and God's people are kept anyway.
So do one small thing that puts weight back into words. Some time this week, it will be easy to bend a fact: a number at work, the reason you were late, or an opinion you do not really hold. Refuse to bend it, even once, and accept the smaller result it may cost you. That is what being kept looks like in ordinary hours. The God whose words are pure has promised to keep you, and He does not break His word.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 133 is Cause His Face to Shine (Psalm 67:1).