Turn to Psalm 32. I titled this, Confession and
Forgiveness. Confession and Forgiveness. As I have already said, this
Psalm was written by David. As most all the writers agree,
after he had committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband
murdered. It is said to have been written
after Psalm 51, that great psalm of repentance over the same matter.
And this psalm is also called an instructive psalm. The one
writing it knows what he's talking about by experience. We can receive instructions from
this psalm. Now here in this psalm, David
speaks of the blessed man, the happy man, happy man. And he tells us that the blessed
man or the happy man, the man who's truly happy, man or woman,
is one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered, and the man unto whom the Lord
absolutely will not impute sin or charge him with sin. And every child of God here,
every sinner in this room will say, Amen. That is what true
happiness is. I can say, and I know you can
say, that there's nothing that will make you happier than to
know that God has forgiven you, that He has put away your transgressions. What David has given us in this
psalm is not from something he has read, but something he has experienced.
He has experienced the pain of this. And we know by studying this
psalm, we will see this in a minute, that David tried to hide his
sin of adultery and murder for about a year. It is said for
about a year he tried to push this under the rug, ignore
his conscience. And in doing so, God's hand was
heavy upon him and it just about drove him out of his mind. So let's look at this. David uses three words in the
first two verses to describe guilt, to describe his guilt. And he
says this, "'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, or he is...
there's no deceit. He's sincere. You know, everyone
whom God saves, they are sincere. They are sincere in their prayers
to God for forgiveness, seeking pardon. And that's what he means
here, that there's no guile doesn't mean he doesn't sin, it means
he's sincere. Now David uses three words here. Transgression. Transgression
is going beyond the bounds. God said to Adam, You shall eat
of all the trees of the garden, but not of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil thou shalt not eat. Adam did it. It's like God drew a line here
and He stepped over it. It's going beyond the bounds.
Then He mentions sin. It's missing the mark. God said,
Be ye holy as I am holy. Have you been that way? Have
you been holy? Sin is missing the mark. Iniquity means moral perversion. Inequity. That's what it means.
And David claims all three of these. My transgression, I've
gone beyond the bounds, I've broken your law, I've sinned,
I've missed the mark, and my iniquity is a moral perversion. Now, what David does here, he
describes the blessed man is one who has all of these forgiven. Forgiven. Everyone whom God has convicted
of sin, they know that the one thing that they need and the
one thing that will make them happy is for God to forgive them
of all their transgressions, all their sin, and all their
iniquities. Every sinner here who's been
taught of God, you know this, you would prefer pardon over
promotion, wouldn't you? You would prefer to be pardoned
of God than to have the highest promotion that this world can
give you. Listen, when man covers his sins,
he hides them. But when God covers sins, He
blots them out. He blots them out. Isaiah 43,
25, Even I am He that blotteth out thy transgressions, and will
not remember thy sins no more. I blot them out. They're gone.
When you and I try to hide them, we try to hide them. They're
not gone. We try to put them under the
rug. But God, when He blots them out,
they're gone. Then verse 2 gives us something else about the blessed
man. This man the Lord will not impute
iniquity to. Listen, He will not impute moral
perversion to that man. What David did with Bathsheba
and having her husband murdered was morally wicked. We know that's so wicked what
He did, but if God would withdraw His
hand from us, we would do the same thing. We are capable of
everything and anything. In verse 2, we have the doctrine
of imputation. What does imputation mean? I
looked it up. Let me give you a couple of them.
Concerning the law, it means this, to ascribe to or charge
a person with an act or a quality because of the conduct of another
over whom one has control or for whose acts or conduct one
is responsible. Now theologically, it means to
attribute righteousness or guilt to a person or persons vicariously. Ascribe as derived from another. Our sins were imputed to Christ. They were laid on Him and charged
to Him. And His righteousness is imputed
to us. Not only we made the righteousness
of God, but it is charged to us, it's laid to our account.
It's laid to our account. Now in verse 3, look over in
verse 3. David tried to hide his sin.
As I said, most of them said about a year. Most of the people
I read. He says, when I kept silence,
didn't want to talk about it. You know, this is something he
didn't want to deal with. When I kept silence, and he didn't
seek God for mercy. When I kept silence, my bones
waxed old through my roaring all the day long. When a child
of God tries to hide sin and guilt and not deal with it, it
will eat them up. Nothing heavier than guilt. I
was reading again, and I've said this, I think I've quoted this
before, but there was one therapist I was reading said, we could
empty 50% of our mental hospitals if we could just get rid of guilt. And we can see right here, it
tore David up. It tore him up. What we see in
verse 3 in David is his internal misery. On the outside, he looked
like King David. He wore all the garb of the king,
and he walked out before the public, and he looked like a
king. But inside, he was a mess. Inside, he was falling apart.
Inside, he was a disaster. Mental anguish. He was about
to have a mental breakdown. That's what he really was. He
was about to have a mental breakdown. He tried living a lie. And it
nearly drove him out of his mind. God will not allow his children
not to confess their sins. Even when that woman with the
issue of blood touched him, and her blood was dried up and she
was healed, he made her confess before everyone why she touched
him. David probably said to himself,
you know how we convince ourselves, don't you? You know how we talk
ourselves into something and out of something? We justify
ourselves. We always justify what we do. And I figure David
probably said, I'll not do that again. Well, not doing that again will
not put that away. It will not put that away. Not
doing something does not change the heart. Not doing something
does not take away the act. And he says here in verse 4,
For day and night thy hand was heavy, but day and night it never
left him. He woke up with it. He went to
bed with it. He went through the day with
it. He went through the weeks with it. He went through the
months with it. He just kept dragging this thing along. Day
and night that hand was heavy upon me. It was so heavy upon
me, He said, My moisture is turned into the drought of summer. It's
like a prune. You take a prune and put it out
under the sun and it just shrivels up. David said, spiritually,
I'm just shriveling up. I'm dying here. I'm dying. Brethren, it takes the power
of God to bring us to say guilty. That's all he had to say. It
took him this long to just stop, turn around, and say guilty. and make no excuse. God would
not let David hide his sin. He will not let us hide our sins. Proverbs 28.13, He that covereth
his sins shall not prosper, but whosoever confesses and forsakes
them shall have mercy. That's so clear, isn't it? That's
so clear. Notice here the willingness of
God in verse 5. I want you to see the willingness
of God to pardon. David said, "'For day and night
thy hand was heavy upon me.'" God did not leave him alone. There was this conviction of
sin, and what he did was just aid at him, and aid at him, and
aid at him. He knew he did wrong. He knew
adultery, and he knew that murder was wrong, even if the king doesn't.
It's wrong. And he finally, finally in verse
5, all these days and nights and this heaviness, God's hand
heavy upon him, it finally brought him to verse 5, I acknowledge
my sin unto thee. I'm not hiding it no more. I
can't carry this burden no more. And mine iniquity have I not
hid. He tried to. He tried not to deal with it.
He tried not to deal with it. I said, I will confess my transgressions
unto the Lord. Listen, as soon as he did that,
as soon as he did that, thou forgavest the iniquity, the moral
perversion and guilt of my sin. He carried that for a long time. And we need to learn a lesson
here. We sin. We sin all the time. If we could learn from the outset
to turn to the Lord and ask for mercy and forgiveness, deal with
it. That's what David tried not to
do, was deal with it. But he says here, I acknowledge
my sin unto thee, because he says in Psalm 51, against thee
and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight.
All sin is against God. Now I may do something to you
and it's not right, but I'm telling you, the actual sin is against
God first. It's against God first. Oh, he said, I acknowledge and
thou forgave us. As he said in Psalm 51, 12, restoring
to me the joy of thy salvation. And David's saying here, as soon
as I made a clean sweep and I fell on my face before God and I acknowledged
my sin, my transgression, God forgave me. You know the scripture
says he delights to show mercy. You know God delights to show
mercy more than you and I will ever delight to have it. He delighteth
to show mercy. And let me point this out. God
did not forgive him of his sin just because he asked God to
forgive him. Sin must be dealt with. Samuel
said this, in 2 Samuel 12.13, he said this, And David said
unto Nathan, well, I mean Nathan said this to David. It's in 2
Samuel 12.13. He said, David said, I have sinned
against the Lord. And Nathan said to David, The
Lord also hath put away thy sin. God's already put it away. You
know, Christ is called the Lamb slain before the foundation of
the world. In a real sense, our sins were
put away before the first thing was created. Because, I tell
you, He called those things was be not as though they were. Because
with God, it's done. It's done. Nathan said, The Lord hath put
away thy sin. And you know, in the Old Testament,
if someone committed murder, you know what the law said? It
said, you've got to kill him. Adultery had to be stoned to
death. Had to be stoned to death. And here, Nathan says to David,
The Lord hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die. Thou shalt
not die. How did the Lord put away David's
sin? The same way He puts away all
the sins of all whom He saves. By the blood of Jesus Christ.
That's how He put it away. Scripture says without the shedding
of blood there is no remission of sin. David, there's no forgiveness
of sin without the shedding of blood. There's only one way to get rid
of guilt, to get rid of sin, and that's by the blood of Jesus
Christ. The only thing that can truly
quiet an accusing conscience is the blood of Christ. That
is the only thing that can give any sinner a clear conscience. My sins have already been dealt
with. In the blood of Christ is the
payment the law demands for my sin. And it says in 1 John 1
verse 9, "...if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
We ought to put that verse in our billfold or in your purse.
That's something we ought to read continually because we continually
need it. I do. And you're just like me. You're just rotten as I am. I
know. I've lived here now for three
years. You're just rotten as I am. But here's a paradox. Listen,
verse 6, chapter 32. For this shall everyone
that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be
found. Listen, only a godly man, only
a godly woman will pray for forgiveness. No one else will. No one else will. You say, David,
that is so wicked. But you know what? David is a
godly man. He's a sinner saved by grace.
You know in the Scripture, it says that David followed the
Lord wholly with his whole heart, except in the situation with
Uriah the Hittite. It says that he followed the
Lord completely, wholly with his whole heart, except in that
situation. The Lord let him fall. And that
humbled him the rest of his life. He enjoyed the joy of salvation
again, God restored it to him, but I'm telling you this, he
never forgot that he had his best friend murdered and took
his wife. and it made a better king out
of him in the long run. I bet he was a far more gracious,
kind king after that than before that." Even though I think he
was before that, but this really, you know, there's no way he could
look at a criminal knowing that he himself is guilty of the worst
of crimes. That's when you say, But by the
grace of God there go I. For this, only a godly man will
repent in such a way. Only a godly man will seek the
Lord when he may be found." When is that? When is that? When you're sitting before the
gospel being preached, who's right here right now, The Lord is present in the message.
He may be found. He may be found. When He has
laid heavy conviction upon your heart over your sins, He may
be found, because He's the one doing it. Because the only time
we ever get troubled over sin is because we got caught. This
ain't about getting caught. David's the king. Who's going
to bother David? Who's going to do anything to David? Nobody
but God. You see, this is Holy Spirit
conviction. This is godly sorrow. This is sorrow brought on by
God the Holy Spirit. Listen to 2 Corinthians 7 and
verses 9 and 10. Paul says this, Now I rejoice,
not that you were made sorry, because of the letter he wrote,
but that you sorrowed to repentance. For you were made sorry after
a godly manner, that you might receive damage by us and nothing.
Listen, verse 10. For godly sorrow worketh repentance
to salvation not to be repented of. It's real, it's genuine. But the sorrow of the world works
death. You get caught and you're sorry
for it. That works death. But the sorrow brought on by
Holy Spirit conviction, that works life. That leads to life. There's a difference. And then
he says this. Spurgeon said this. I thought
this was good. For this shall everyone that is godly pray unto
thee in a time when thou mayest be found. He said, Where one
sinner has found pardon for his sins, another one may be encouraged
to do so also." Another one may be encouraged. You know, God's
forgiven you, you tell another sinner. You tell another sinner
of Him. Why did the Lord tell that demonic?
You go back home and tell them what the Lord has done for you. You don't have to be a theologian
to be a witness for Christ. You tell them what the Lord has
done for you. That's all. That's all you need to do. And
then he says here, well he says here, let me finish that verse.
Surely in the floods of great waters, surely in the floods
of great trials, great trials, they shall not come nigh unto
him. Or that is, surely in the floods of great trials they will
not destroy you." They will not destroy you. God's heavy hand
on David was not for his destruction. It was for his salvation. That
he'd be not judged with the world. You know, God chastens us that
we'd be not judged with the world. That's what Paul tells us. And then he says here in verse
7, Thou art my hiding place. You
know, the best place, you know, the best place to hide from the
wrath of God is in God. It's in God. You know, I learned, and this
may not even be a real apical, but it, it comes to my mind when
I, when I read this, you know, when my, my mother gave more
weapons than my dad did because she was with us all the time.
You know, when Dad whipped us, I never forgot it, but your mom,
she was the one who gave us the most whippings. And I learned
that the closer I got into her, she couldn't whip me very hard
to hug up to her. If you hug up to her, she couldn't
get that long switch going. I don't know if that applies
here, but I think whenever you're in chastening, just hug up to
him. Thou art my hiding place. Thou
shalt preserve me from trouble. That's what God was doing right
there. He preserved him from trouble.
You know how much trouble that was going to lead to if he left
it alone? Thou shalt preserve me from trouble.
And my dad used to, they never let us go to parties. Never let
me go to a party. Make me so mad I could just,
Oh, it would make me mad. Never let me go to a party, never
let me go to a dance. I was so mad it would just, ooh.
But you know what he did? He preserved me from trouble.
And that's what the Lord does daily, daily, daily. And that's
what he does with his chastening rod. He preserves us from trouble. Thou shalt compass me about with
songs of deliverance. That's just what we were singing
here, wasn't it? These songs we sing, songs of
praise, but they're songs of deliverance. Thou shalt compass
me about, wrap me up, songs of deliverance. But you know, it
says, Thou art my hiding place. Isaiah 32.2 says this, A man
shall be as a hiding place from the wind and a covert from the
tempest. and that man is Jesus Christ. And it tells us in Jude 1.1 that
we are preserved in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it tells us
that same thing in 1 Thessalonians 5.23, preserved in Christ. But
now God speaks. Let me finish this up. What's
He going to say? Verse 8, God's going to speak
now. Will He destroy me? Will He speak roughly to me?
No, He's going to instruct me. Verse 8, I will instruct thee
and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. I'll guide thee
with mine eye. God will instruct His children
by His Word, by His Spirit, and by His rod of chastening. God
is our teacher. He's not going to leave us untaught. He's going to be our teacher.
The Scripture says that all thy children shall be taught of God
over in the Gospel of John. He's our teacher. And what will
be the lesson? I will teach thee in the way
which thou shalt go. What is that way? That way is
Christ. I am the way, the truth, and
the life. If we keep our eyes, our heart focused on Him, we
will walk in a right path. Set your heart on things above
where Christ sits at the right hand of the Father. Set your
heart on things above, not on things of this earth. See, David
walked out on that balcony and saw that beautiful woman. His
heart was not on things above. It was on things below. And God says here, I will instruct
thee in the way which thou shalt go, I'll guide thee with mine
eye, I'll counsel thee. We know that one of the names
of Christ is Counselor. You know every time I stand here
and preach, you are being counseled? You don't have to go look for
a counselor. Just pay attention. Pay attention. You're being counseled
every time the Gospel is preached. Every time we open the Bible,
when we go verse by verse, you're being counseled. And he says,
"...I guide thee with mine eye." My dad, or my mother, but they
could just look at me. He can guide me with his eye.
He'd look at me here, he'd look over there, and I'd know to go
over there. That's why he says, I guide you
with my eye. And here's something else, I guide you with my eye
means he's looking right at me. Thou God seest me all the time. The scripture says that the night
is as the day before him. And then he gives us what not
to be. Be ye not as the horse or as the mule, which have no
understanding, whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle,
lest they come near unto thee." Don't be like a dumb animal. Don't be like a dumb animal.
David said in one place, I'm like a beast before you. It's
just like he felt himself to be so stupid. You know, how many times we've
done stuff, we know that was so stupid. Don't be like a beast who has
to have bit and bridle to guide them. God is our guide. And here's
something else. We use the bit and bridle to
keep them close to us. You can't get them to come to
you. If you don't have a bit and bridle,
you pull them to you. You keep them close to you by
holding the reins. What is it that keeps us close
to Christ? Paul said, the love of Christ constrains me. He draws us with cords of love. Stay close to Him. Don't be like
the horse or the mule where you've got to put bitten bridles and
guide them around and pull them to you. No. We're not animals, we're God's
children. He gives here the light of the
wicked. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked. And you know,
you know, when David's writing this, that when David looks at
that, he realizes his sinfulness in what he's done. He knows it. And he knows it's by the sovereign
grace of God that he's not in that company. Many sorrows shall
be to the wicked, but he that trusteth in the Lord Mercy shall compass him about.
Many sorrows here and eternal sorrows hereafter. But those
who trust the Lord shall be wrapped up in mercy. They shall be wrapped
like a blanket. You know how when a baby is born,
they take a blanket and they just wrap that baby up so tight,
and it just makes it feel like it's, I guess, in its mother's
womb. It's just so cuddled up and wrapped. God's mercy has
wrapped us around that like that. We are wrapped up in God's mercy
that way. We really are. And rejoice, you
righteous, and shout for joy, all you that
are upright in heart. Be glad in the Lord. He's not dealt with us according
to our sins nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. There's people in hell that haven't
done nearly as much as I have. You know that? There's people
in hell that's not done outwardly the things you and I have done. This is shouting ground. This
is shouting ground. Shout for joy. My sins are all
taken away.