Good morning. Good seeing you
all. If you will, let's turn to Psalm
32. Psalm 32. I had contact with Brother John
Reeves. Rick Porter the last few days.
Rick and them's fine. They're doing well. Not in standing
water, but the water's rising again. They're in rescue. Ripped
part of the roof off of where they meet for the assembly. And
it was small, about 8, 10 square feet or so. And he had a bale
of shingles. So John Gupper got it back on some felt. And then
he's got a mystery leak somewhere. He said the carpet's soaking
wet. So they're going to have services today. Trials the Lord sends us are
unique to us, and it's so easy to think it's cookie cutter.
It's not. So pray for them as you're able.
I apologize ahead of time. I've been sick for a few days.
I'm not contagious or ill. I ain't run a fever, really.
Since I'm Santa Ana, it's like, whoo, ain't right, and I'm just
weak, weak thing. We gotta tell some things that
some of us forget, and we need reminded of the stories, don't
we? Well, David, he was a king in
Israel, wasn't he? He committed adultery with a
woman by the name of Bathsheba. She was the wife of one of his
most loyal soldiers, a dear friend of his. His name was Uriah. Bathsheba
was Uriah's wife and David saw her taking a bath one day on
top of a roof and sent for her. She came to him and she became
pregnant. She was with child and David
tried to get out of it. What am I gonna do? I know who
she is. I know what I've done. I gotta
fix this. I got a good idea. I'll have Uriah come back from
battle real fast. Real quick, special orders, go
get that soldier, bring him home. Now you go see your wife first,
we'll talk tomorrow about what I wanna talk to you about. And
that way he could pawn this off and Uriah would think this child
that she's bearing is his child. Well, that didn't work. It didn't work. Uriah was a faithful
soldier. People talk about being a faithful
soldier of God. Let me tell you what this faithful
soldier did. He came home from the battle as ordered, and he
wouldn't go back to his house and his wife. He said, that's
not fair. It ain't right that all of Israel
is fighting the battle, and for me to come home and be living
the good life. That ain't right. That ain't right. So you know
what he did? He ain't gonna enjoy the good things. He stayed right
there by David's door. He slept by David's door. He
said, I'll be here if you want me here, but I'm serving you.
That's a servant, buddy. That's a soldier. That's a warrior,
isn't it? The next day, David said, well, that ain't working.
I'm gonna get him drunk. And then those instinctive passions
will come out. It's lawful. You're married.
Go to your wife, buddy. Wouldn't have it. Didn't work. He was sober-minded, wasn't he?
He was set, and so David did something low. He did something
terrible. He wrote an order, a written
order to Joab, his head general, to send Uriah to the front line
of the battlefield. You go out there in front, and
when he's at the very tip of the spear, take your armies and
pull back just a little bit and let him die. Let the enemy kill
him. And he took that, and he wrote
that order, and he sealed it, and he gave it to Uriah to deliver
his very own execution orders. No one, he was such a faithful
soldier, a warrior, for his king, he wasn't gonna break that seal
and open it. Wasn't none of his business. He's here to work,
wasn't he? He went and died. David committed
adultery, and he committed premeditated cold-blooded murder. This is
the very one that God says a couple times, this is a man after my
own heart. How could that be? How could a child of God do such
a thing? I've heard people ask that. I've
heard brethren look at other brethren and say, if there's
a child of God, he wouldn't do that. I've thought that. Well, we are
ignorant of ourselves if we say that. I would never. Yes, you
would. You don't know you. God hasn't
revealed to you what you are yet if you'd say such things. If he takes his hand off of us,
we'd do anything. Anything. Anything. David went on for at least a
year. You know that? His at least a year. Now she
became full term to deliver that baby. Nine months there. Call it a year at least, business
as usual. He didn't acknowledge his sin,
he was ignorant of it. And then God sent Nathan the
prophet to him. Imagine that, the whole year David had no idea
what was going on that it was that bad. He didn't think what
he did was that bad. Everybody around him knew it
was bad, didn't they? What you're doing is wrong. You
think if Nathan had get up and preached to him, instead of looking
at Bathsheba, he'd have to hear, no, what are you doing? He didn't
see nothing wrong with it. God hadn't taught him. Nathan
probably got taught a few things then too. I can shake it on,
show you scriptures and shake you and say, look what this,
this is wrong. This is bad. That can be done to me too. My
pastor could do that to me. I ain't going to get it unless
God's pleased to convict me of something. that prophet Nathan
was sent to him and he told David a story. He said, David, there
was this man and he had a little lamb and he loved that little
lamb. He only had the one and boy,
he loved it. He loved it so good, he would
let that little lamb sit at the table with his children and eat. That's crazy. They'd sit there
at the table and eat with him. He loved it. Well, his neighbors
were wealthy, had a whole bunch of lambs and his neighbor, Went
and said, you know what? I'm having some guests come over,
but I don't want to use any of my lambs. And he went and took
that little lamb, that one that was so loved, and took it, and
he slew it, and he fed it to his friends. David got so mad. David said, who is this feller?
You show him to me. Kill him. Kill him. And Nathan looked him dead square
in the eye and said, thou art the man. That's you, David. That's you. I don't feel skilled to paint
people in a corner now. I've been painting a couple of corners
too. You're the man. God ever looked you in the eye
and said, you're the man or the woman or the person. You're the man. And right after that, David wrote
two Psalms. He wrote Psalm 51. Lord, against thee and thee only
have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that you can be
just when you can condemn me. Well, people always excuse everything. That's a horrible confession.
Well, I stole, but I was hungry. That ain't an apology. Wipe that
out of your mouth. You either give a full confession,
a full apology, or you don't. David laid down lock, stock,
and barrel. He said, I've sinned against you and you only, and
done this evil on your side. And you're just kill me right
now. You're just, Lord. And he wrote Psalm 32. Isn't
that something? Verse 1 says, Blessed is he whose
transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the
man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit
there is no God. That's blessed, man. What is
the world? What does bumper stickers in
San Diego County say blessed is? I saw a life plate the other
day that said blessed. People sneezed at bless you.
You selling snake oil, too? That's weird to me. And then
one fella up in the Northeast, a teacher I had, he got so lazy
with it, he'd just say, bless. Bless. It's as comical as it
is the first time. Silly man, silly, ain't they?
What does the world say bless? Good house, good family, kids
that obey. Vacation, retirement. Oh, we
got set now. Boy, it's gonna be warm, die
someplace warm. That's blessed, isn't it? Plenty
of food in the pantry. What does God say? Mm. Blessed is he whose transgressions
forgiven. What's transgression? I got good news for rebels. Transgression
means rebellion. Rebellion. Rebellion. The actual commission of a sinful
act. We come from the womb speaking
lies, don't we? Speaking lies. Rebellion. You're
a rebel. You're an enemy of God. You know
the only difference between a revolutionist and a rebel is? Which side, y'all?
We ain't revolutionists, we're rebels. That's how we come into
this world. Old timers called this sins of commission, things
you did. The Lord looked down in Genesis
6 and saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth
and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was
only evil continually. Has there ever been you? Has
there ever been me? Is that you now? or if it ain't,
you're in trouble. That's all I am, is sin. All left to myself, and I look
to myself, I ain't nothing but bad, all the time. And what I
don't know is evil. What I don't know I do is evil,
isn't it? Turn over Romans chapter three. Romans three, verse nine. Paul's writing the believers,
and he said, what then, are we better than they? No, and no
wise, for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles that they
are all understand. As it is written, there is none
righteous, no, not one. There's none that understandeth.
Well, I know some things. No, you don't. No, you don't. There's none that understand
that. There's none that seeketh after God. I was looking for God. No,
you weren't. You're looking for your God. They are all gone out
of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There's none that doeth good.
No, not one. Their throat's an open sepulcher. With their tongues,
they have used deceit. The poison of ash was under their
lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their
feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery is in
their way. and the way of peace have they not known. There is
no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that what things
soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law
that every mouth may be stopped, that all the world may become
guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the
law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight for the
law. By the law is the knowledge of sin. Well now we just know
we're sinners. If I don't shut you up, let me
tell you what shut you up means to sin. Somebody's doing something
wrong that I know, and I'm about to say, here's what you need
to do. What's wrong with you? And right then, I knew I was
that man. I was gonna tell somebody, then
he quit being lazy, and I needed to get after it. And I saw my
laziness towards a God that saved me. And my mouth was shut, and
I didn't say anything. I had a shut mouth. But if we
know what we are and we stop there, that's just misery, isn't
it? That's misery. So many people
stop at misery, don't they? Look at verse 21. But now, you
ain't righteous. You're the opposite. But now
the righteousness of God, without the laws manifest, being witnessed
by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God,
which is by faith of. Jesus Christ unto all and upon
all them that believe, for there's no difference. All sin comes
from the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God sent
forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare
his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through
the forbearance of God, to declare, I say at this time, his righteousness,
that he might be just, And he's just. I've sinned against him
and him alone. He's just when he speaks. Every
word he says is right. And the justifier of him which believeth
in Jesus. That's what we are. But God,
we are complete transgression. We're complete rebellion. We're
complete unrighteousness. But his righteousness, that's
what covers it. Where's all that transgression
come from? Where's all rebellion come from?
David said, blessed is the man whose sin is covered. All that
transgression's been forgiven, and his sin is covered. And he
didn't just say transgression, sin, iniquity, guile, isn't it
all the same thing? No, it's different, isn't it?
Transgression's what we do. That's our rebellion. Sin is
our nature. That's what we are by nature,
even as others, isn't it? Offense, that offensive nature,
that's what we are. our iniquities, crooked moral
things that we do and think, all of our transgressions, our
rebellion. Sins are what we commit because sin is what we are. Plural
is what we commit because singular is what we are. That's a noun.
It's a feminine noun. That's what we are. We don't
become a murderer when we kill somebody. We kill somebody because
we're already a murderer. That's our nature. That's what
we are. Job said, who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean
thing? He said, it ain't like I started being bad one day.
I've always been that way. He said, not one. David said
he was conceived in sin. My mother conceived me in sin.
That doesn't mean his mother was doing something wrong whenever
she was pregnant with David. That means that from conception,
he had a wicked nature. And that's where our rebellion
comes from. Turn over in your Bibles to Mark chapter seven.
Let's look at this. Mark chapter seven. Dear Mark 7, our Lord has just
given a parable. I'm always thankful for this.
The disciple said, he said, Laura said, it was this next hour.
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. And he walks away,
and all the disciples said, what'd you mean by that? Like a little
child, isn't it? What's that mean? What's that
mean? That's a good question. He's the one that can answer.
That's the one that can answer. And when he was entered into
the house of the people, verse 17, Mark 7, 17. And when he was
entered into the house from the people, his disciples asked him
concerning the parable. And he saith unto them, Are you
so without understanding also? Do you not perceive that whatever
thing from without entereth into a man, it cannot defile him,
no matter what you eat or drink, because it entereth not into
his heart? That's the problem, but the belly. You just come
in and you ain't going out. Eat all the pork sandwiches you
want. It goes out in the drought, purging all meat. And he said,
that which cometh out of a man, that defileth a man. For from
within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries,
fornications, murders, thefts, covetous, wickedness, deceit,
lasciviousness, and evil eye, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things come from
within and defile the man. Those are acts. We don't dismiss
sin. We don't just, well, that's just what they are. They can't
help it. That's their instinct. No, we don't condone sin. Those
acts, those transgressions, that rebellion's bad. Why? It comes from a person that's
bad. That's all we are. That's our nature. That's our
instinct. Understand? That's what the Lord says. The
Lord says, you ever had a kind of a bad thought? That's because
you ain't nothing but sin. That's our old man. That's that
flesh, isn't it? And I turn to Ephesians 2. Bad news. Ought to be. Ought to be bad
news. Shake you up, son. Ephesians
2 verse 1. And you hath he quickened who
were dead in trespasses and sins. I'm a dead man. Wherein in time
past you walked according to the course of this world, according
to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now
worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all All had
our conversation in times past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature,
by nature, by natural instinct, that's all we are, the children
of wrath, even as others. Oh, man, you stop right there
and just go crawl underneath a rock and hope the mountains
fall on you. That's true. Is that true for
you? That's bad news, Bob. He didn't stop rotting, did he?
Verse four, but God, but God who is rich in mercy for his
great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in
sins hath quickened us together with Christ. And he's raised
us up together, made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus, that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches
of his grace in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus. That's good news for a sinner. I can't keep from it. Read Romans
7, right? All the things I want to do,
I can't do. And all the things I don't want to do, that's what
I do. Where are we? But God, but God
blessed is the man whom the Lord imputed not iniquity. Iniquity
is perversity. It's moral perversity. I'm gonna do something good.
And then having perverseness in that pride in that, look at
all the good I did. I'm gonna tell everybody about
all the good things I did. That's called iniquity. And I'll tell
you what it also means. That's those sins of omission.
All the good things we ought to have done, those hungry we should have fed,
those brethren we should have forgiven, those we should have
been kind to, those we should have listened to instead of talked
to, that's iniquity. That law ain't going away, is
it? The Lord saved us from underneath
the law, isn't it? Is his law still holy? Can we
have another God than him? Can you disobey your parents?
Can you kill and cheat on your wife? What? Oh, I still stand. There's a whole lot of things
we ought to do, and we don't. Iniquity, iniquity. The Lord's
pardoned that. He doesn't impute iniquity to
us. He says in Nehemiah, but they
are, and our fathers dealt proudly, and hardened their necks, and
they hardened not to thy commandments. They didn't hearken to your commandments.
They didn't do them. Supposed to do them, and you didn't do
them. And they refused to obey. This word's plain. It says that
there. I ain't gonna do it. We're fools, ain't we? They refused
to obey, neither were they mindful of the works, the wonders that
thou didst among them, but they hardened their necks, and in
their rebellion, they had iniquities and they had transgressions,
in their rebellion, appointed a captain to return to their
bondage. But thou, but they are to God ready to pardon, gracious
and merciful, slow to anger, boy is he, and great kindness. He forsook them not. They forsook
him, he didn't forsake them. Jeremiah 50, 20 says, in those
days and in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel
shall be sought for. All those things you should have
done, you didn't, and all those good things you think was good
but that was bad, judgment's coming, God's gonna look for
them. And he says, and there shall be none. And the sins of
Judah, and there shall be none found. I ain't gonna find no
sin, I ain't gonna find no transgression, I ain't gonna find no iniquity.
For I will pardon them whom I reserve. Those that he set aside, those
that he sanctified, he's declared his own, he said, I'm gonna pardon
them. Can't touch, it ain't there. How is that possible? Man argues
the dumbest things on the face of the earth. How can a God judge
a sin, he's seen it to judge it, And he says, I don't remember
it. He forgets nothing. He knows all. That's magnificent,
isn't it? Because of Christ. Lest is the
man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity and in whose spirit
there is no guile. Guile is the root word of hurl,
treachery. Throwing treacheries, like hand
grenades, as hard as we can do it in. That's guile. What do
we hurl treacherously? Here's another thing of the word
too. Falsehoods, idleness, slack, and slothfulness. It's the commission
and omission from a nasty spirit. And the Lord says it's lying
and lazy. Lying on others, lying on God, and not doing what we
know better. If we're declared to be grownups,
act like it. That's basic, isn't it? Gal,
that's what it is, it's Gal. And the Lord said, blessed is
the man whom the Lord imputed not iniquity, in whose spirit
there's no Gal. Well how, if I know what I am in sin, I know
all the rebellion I've committed in my transgressions, and I know
all the things I should have done and I didn't do, willfully,
my iniquity, I ain't nothing but Gal. How could I be blessed? The Lord looked at Nicodemus
and said, you gotta be born again. I'm gonna put life in you, a
whole brand new spirit. And in that spirit, there ain't
no God. It's for me. You're of Adam, your father.
This one's of my father. That's incorruptible seed. He
puts that in us. Lest as the man or woman. What's
done to these things? This transgression we looked
at, the sin we looked at, the iniquities looked at, the guile,
just a culmination of all of it, just oozing out of you and
your hurling treacheries. What's done to those things? West is he whose transgression
is forgiven. That word forgiven, if you've
got a marginal reference, Bible says lifted away. Lifted away,
not erased, it was lifted away. I thought on what the Lord told
Nicodemus. He said, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. and
whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting
life. Those iniquities, sin, me, was lifted clean, all of
it, out of me and put on him and his righteousness, his holy
nature, who he is, what he's done and living in this world
was lifted off of him and put in me. My transgressions are forgiven.
They're lifted away. It's like in a carpet. You gotta
lift them stains out of the carpet. We know that word, don't we? Wash it and put paint over it
and it's still there. No, it's gotta come clean out. Plumb out,
don't it? Our rebellion was lifted away,
removed from us. It was placed on Christ, our
substitute. And the Lord, our Father said,
he's made him sin for us who knew no sin. It was laid on him
that we might be made the righteous God in him. That's laid on us,
made that way. He says, blessed is the man whose
sin is covered. It's not covered like we throw
a blanket over something. I can put a napkin over a glass
and it's covered, but the glass is still there. Not the way he
covers. That's what Adam did, wasn't
it? I'm naked. Well, I'm going to cover myself.
Your nakedness is still there. You just have to have some fig
leaves over it. They'll rot away, won't they? It said in Isaiah
1, 18, Come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though
your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as the snow. Though
they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. We can't get
that out. There's blood in a white garment.
Can you get it out? It can't be lifted. I can't do that. The
Lord said you're gonna be white as the snow, isn't it? How? In
Revelation 7, it says, and he said this to me, These are they
which came out of great tribulation and have washed their robes and
made them white in the blood of the Lamb." How can transgressions
and sin and iniquity and guile ever be dealt with? The blood
of the Lamb. He has to see the blood, then
he'll pass over us. Why? Ain't nothing there to see. Nothing there to see. Therefore
they before the throne of God, that's how we're in his presence,
and served him day and night in his temple, and he that sitteth
on the throne shall dwell among them. He said, I'll be their
God and they'll be my people. Why? Because of the blood of
the lamb. That's the only reason. Imputed. Blessed is the man unto
whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. I put this in bold letters in
my notes, and this is the day we live in, and I'm going to
say it plainly. I don't want to load your gun for you for
Facebook. Okay? I'm here to teach you something,
not to arm you. Stay away from those things.
Don't engage and don't instruct others. God gave them a pastor.
Hey, they can deal with it. But, blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity. People say this word impute means
God went to the bank and you didn't have no righteousness
and he put righteousness in there. Okay, well, let me ask you this.
Does God go to the bank and does he deposit iniquities into your
account? That's ridiculous. That's foolish
thinking, isn't it? That's not what that word means.
He accounts. He doesn't impute iniquity. That
means he doesn't take account. He declares what he sees, like
he's going around taking inventory. And he blesses this man the Lord
walks up to and says, ain't nothing there. There ain't no evil there. It's gone. It's gone. He takes cemetery, and that man
is blessed when the Lord comes and sees no lack, he sees no
guilt, and he sees no faulty nature. What if something happens
down the road? That's gone too. That spirit's
new. It can't fail. It's his. That
seed can't not bearing forth fruit. It's his seed. I might
buy some seeds down store and put them in the ground. They
may not grow. Not his seed. That seed doesn't fail. David said, blessed is he whose
transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the
man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity and in whose spirit
there is no guile. Vacant of guilt. Vacant of guilt. Vacant of guile. That's a blessed
person. That means everything I am died
and went away. Isn't that right? It was buried. And then thanks be to God, something
new arose. Something new came forth. A new life was there. That's
blessed. That's blessed. Having all you
youngins over at Thanksgiving and having family live close,
that ain't blessed. Having money in the bank, that ain't blessed. The Lord says that's what's blessed.
That's a blessed man. That's happy. The word means
happy. It make you happy? If it don't bring tears to your
eyes, at least turn your frown upside down. Come on. Old Greg
said that about Donnie Bell the other day. He said, boy, if we
could just get him excited about preaching, he said, we might
be accomplished. Donnie's excited all the time.
That's something to be happy about. Blessed. Turn over to
Jude. Book of Jude. I'm gonna close. I thought of this, too. Jude 24. right before Revelation. Man calls things, when we're
going to get it started, we're going to pray beforehand, an
invocation. And when things are getting wrapped up, they call
it a benediction. I thought Jude was just speaking
praise to his Lord. Verse 24 says, now, unto him
that is able to keep you from falling. and present you faultless
before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. To the only
wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power,
both now and ever. Amen. All praise be to Him for
such a blessing that He's given His people. Amen. Let's pray together. Father, we're a blessed people.
We're peculiar people, but how happy we are and how great blessings
you bestowed upon us will give us that thankful spirit, accountants
of joy and contentment to go through this world with knowing
our transgressions been dealt with, our seeing what we are
has been dealt with. All the things we should have
done. Christ has fulfilled it all. What a wonderful savior we have.
We'll be with those that are in trial. Make them remember
the blessings in your son. Give him grace to do that. Thank
you for this hour. Forgive us. for our rebellion and what we
are. It's in Christ's name that we ask it. Amen.