God’s Word is Pure (Psalm 12:6)

The words of the Lord are pure words like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times.
– Psalm 12:6

I love this verse that contrasts the words of the Lord with our words.

Psalm 12:6 Contrasts God’s Words with Our Words

So earlier in this Psalm, Psalm 12:3 says, “May the Lord cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that makes great boasts, those who say, “With our tongue, we will prevail. Our lips are with us. Who is master over us?,” the Psalm describing the flippancy and arrogance and pride that so often comes from our mouths.

And then you get to Psalm 12:6 and you see this beautiful contrast, “The words of the Lord are pure, purified seven times like silver refined in a furnace.” And we open up God’s word, every word we see in front of us. Just picture the Bible and picture every single word as pure, every single word as true, every single word as righteous and clean, good in every way. Oh, doesn’t it just, one, make you thankful for God’s word in a world of impurity and uncleanness, in a world where there is so much boasting and flattering and prideful speech and flippant speech and untrue speech, to have a word we can open up every morning that we know is true and right, good and all together pure, perfect in every way?
And then to pray that God would make our words our reflection of His word.

Psalm 12:6 Encourages Us to Purify Our Words

God, we praise you for your word. We praise you for revealing yourself, your truth, all that we need that is true and right and good, to know you and to grow in relationship with you and to experience abundant life in this world. We praise you for your word. Help us, as Psalm 1 said, to meditate on it day and night and, as Joshua 1 says, to be careful to do according to all that’s in it, including, God, to speak in ways that are true and right and good and pure.

God, help us to guard our lips today, just like verse three in this Psalm says, “You cut off flattering lips and tongues that make great boasts.” God, we pray that you’d forgive us for how flippant we can be with our words, how hurtful we can be with our words that we speak, that we write over social media, over emails, that we can so easily communicate in ways that are not pure and holy and right and good. So guard our words today. We pray that we might reflect the purity of your word in the way we speak, in what we write.

Praying for Those Without Access to the Bible

And God, we pray specifically today for people groups around the world who don’t have your word, for Bible-less peoples. God, please bless all those who are working on Bible translation. All glory be to your name for what you’re doing among many organizations who are working together through illuminations to translate the Bible and to the languages of the world, the opportunities we have in our day that are unique in history that we over the coming years could see the Bible, your word translated in every language in the world, at least some of it. God, may it be so. And bless all those who are working on that, and bless us as your church. Help us to give toward that and to play the part you’ve given us to play in history in getting your words, your pure words, to every single person in the world.

We pray all of this according to your word in Psalm 12:6. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder of Radical, an organization that makes Jesus known among the nations.

David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Don’t Hold Back, and How to Read the Bible.

He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.

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