Psalm 120 shows us a clear picture of the world. It is short, but very precise. The psalm begins, "In my distress I called out to Jehovah, and He answered me. O Jehovah, deliver my soul from lying lips, from a tongue of deceit" (v. 1-2). What is the most striking thing about the world? In the world, your life is a life of distress. You confront one difficulty after another all of the time. In the world there is no strength or comfort. The ascent up Mount Zion begins with the realization that in the world there is only distress. When the Israelites were singing these Psalms of Ascent as they were going up Mount Zion they must have realized this. In the world there was only distress, without strength or comfort.

What else is in the world? Lying lips and a deceitful tongue. Lying lips are for defending yourself, while a deceitful tongue is for gaining something for yourself. In other words, when you want to take advantage of others you become deceitful. When you want to defend yourself, you become a liar. In the world there is nothing but lies and deceit. People lie to you to take advantage of you, and they lie to protect and defend themselves. The world is filled with deceitfulness. The world is a world of lies.

For example, when you graduate from college, a certain company will come to you to cheat you. The company is deceitful. They will portray a beautiful picture to you. "If you just serve in our company, then after forty years we will give you this amount of money to retire." They never tell you that this company may not last forty years. They make many promises, but there is no guarantee that their company will last long enough to fulfill their word. This means that they cheat you. They do their best to deceive you so that they can gain your soul and your person. But those who apply for such a job also do their best to lie. They put on their resume, "I am good at this, I am able to do that." Even when it is not true, they embellish their record. So the two parties mutually lie to one another.

From the beginning the psalmist portrays the world in such an accurate way. He exposes the world's true nature. He doesn't merely say that the world is so evil and sinful. Instead he says that in the world there are all sorts of lies. These lies are the source of all the evil. Once a person abides in lies and falsehood, all kinds of evil things can come in. This is why in the beginning of this psalm, the psalmist cries out to God, "O Jehovah, deliver my soul." What does he need to be delivered from? Not only the world, but himself. He realizes that if he is in the world he can only end up with lying lips.

We do not know how much we lie. Even when we are speaking the truth, we may lie. Sometimes we lie by the way we use our voice. Our words are right, but our voice is a lie. Our whole person can be in lies. So here the psalmist cries out, "O Jehovah, deliver my soul from lying lips, from a tongue of deceit." Not only does he desire to be delivered from his own lies, but he desires to be delivered from the deceitful tongues of those around him so that he would not be cheated anymore.