Who Is Lord over Us?

For a long time now, Western thinking has been moving in a socially liberal direction. A culture that once based its thinking on the Christian worldview has now become antithetical to Christianity. The radical moral change in the West is evidence of this.

Because of this change, the situation for many Christians echoes David’s lament found in Psalm 12, which records the godly man struggling with the evil prevalent in his nation:

Help, Lord, for the godly man ceases to be,
For the faithful disappear from among the sons of men.
They speak falsehood to one another;
With flattering lips and with a double heart they speak.

May the Lord 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?”

“Because of the devastation of the afflicted,
Because of the groaning of the needy,
Now I will arise,” says the Lord; “I will set him in the safety for which he longs.”

The words of the Lord are pure words;
As silver tried in a furnace on the earth, refined seven times.
You, O Lord, will keep them;
You will preserve him from this generation forever.
The wicked strut about on every side
When vileness is exalted among the sons of men.

The dominant presence of the wicked can make it appear that the godly have disappeared. Just as in David’s day, many Christians today have been intimidated or seduced by the falsehoods spoken by the culture (i.e. relativism, evolutionary naturalism, and so on).

The question on the lips of the rebellious man in verse 4 of the Psalm, “Who is lord over us?” is also something we hear echoed today. The pride of secular humanists and secularly influenced millennials see themselves as autonomous before God in the things they do, say, and write. What happens when people think this way? The result of this sort of attitude is that “vileness is exalted” among the people (verse 8). Today, we see that immorality (such as covetousness, sexual immorality, abortion, and euthanasia) is not only celebrated but is being forced upon people.

Although our current cultural situation may cause us to feel that we should remain silent or even flee, we must instead respond just as David did, by calling out to the Lord in his time of need (verses 1 and 3). David knew that, unlike the wicked who spoke falsely, the words of the Lord are pure (verse 6) and He will guard the godly (verse 7).

When it comes to our cultural situation today, we should also keep in mind that the book of Acts tells us that Christianity was born into a time of adversity and immorality in a world where the church was in the minority. At that time Christians had to find a way to be faithful in an age when they were not (culturally) in control. Even when the emperor claimed to be Lord and the moral code was decidedly in opposition to Scripture, the Holy Spirit gave that early church the ability to be faithful and to preach the Word of God without fear or compromise. He did it then, and He can do so now.

Christianity is not about status or fame or being in control of the culture, but about living day by day under the Lordship of Christ. Whereas the culture may deny that they have a Lord over them, our duty as Christians is to proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord over us all (2 Corinthians 4:5)