We're going to look at Psalm
32. Psalm 32. This is the Psalm of
David, Maskeel. That's the first time this word
appears. Now, we have been looking at
the Psalms thus far as they represent what I believe are primarily
the prayers of Jesus Christ. Of course, we know that the subject
of all the Psalms, as is the subject of all the whole Word
of God, is Jesus Christ. And there is not a page in this
book, there is not a place you can go, that the Spirit of God
cannot teach you of Christ if He is pleased to open your eyes
to see Him there, because He is there. He is the author of
the book. And he is the subject of the
book. But this psalm is a little different
than those we have looked at in general thus far penned by David. But the word
maskil means instructive. It is an instruction. It is that
which is given to teach the people of God something. Now, I believe,
again, these are the words of Christ, but not in the same sense
in which those words that we have looked at in the former
Psalms as being those words of praise and prayer unto the Father
by the Son. But these are instructive words. We read here, 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. When I kept silence, my bones
waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and
night thy hand was heavy upon me, My moisture is turned into
the drought of summer. Selah. I acknowledged my sin
unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will
confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest
the iniquity of my sin. Selah. For this shall every one
that is godly pray unto thee in the time when thou mayest
be found. Surely in the floods of great
waters they shall not come nigh unto him. Thou art my hiding
place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble.
Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah. I will instruct thee and teach
thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine
eye. 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. Many sorrows
shall be to the wicked, but he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy
shall compass him about. Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice,
ye righteous, and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart."
Now what a glorious message is set forth here, and as the psalmist says, blessed
is he. Now remember when the Lord taught
what's called the Beatitudes, that's the word that He used,
blessed are the poor. For theirs is the kingdom of
heaven. Blessed are they. That is, the blessings of God
are upon them. That's what he means by that.
They are happy. That's what the word blessed
literally means. It means happy. Happy are those
who are in such a state. And so he says here, happy is
that man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Now that's not a redundant statement,
but it is a It's an emphasis that's being placed here, and
there is a difference between transgression and sin that he's
talking about here. Blessed is the man, blessed is
he whose transgression is forgiven. That word transgression literally
has to do with rebellion or revolt. If you see this over in the book
of John, I just thought about this coming into my mind. If
you look over in the book of 1 John, and let me see where
this is at here, about the third chapter I think. Okay, in the third chapter in
the fourth verse, it says, Whosoever committeth sin, transgresseth
also the lawful sin, is the transgression of the law. Now, the transgression
of the law is more than just doing the wrong thing. Now, men
by nature are born in sin. Men by nature are born in rebellion
against God. But there is a work of God that
takes place in those whom the Lord is pleased to call to Himself
wherein He takes away transgression and He removes from them the
spirit of transgression. Now what I mean by that, what
I mean by that is exactly what he goes on to say down here,
whosoever abideth in him sinneth not, whosoever sinneth hath not
seen him, neither known him. Now if he is speaking in that
passage of Scripture about mere sin, that is everyday breaking
of the law of God, we can count ourselves out, can we not? But
what he's speaking about is what he has defined there in verse
4, "...whosoever committed sin transgresseth also the law, for
sin is the transgression of the law." Now what he's speaking
about here in this passage in John, when he says sin is the
transgression of the law, he's defining sin, which he goes on
to say if you commit that, if you go that way, then you don't
know God. And what he is defining as there
is the revolt or rebellion against the Word of God. Now by nature
we all rebel against the Word of God and your flesh still rebels
against the Word of God even as I speak. Your flesh will never
be conformed to the truth of God, but the Spirit of God working
in you does indeed cause you, as a born-again child of God,
not to be in rebellion against the Word of God. Not to be in
rebellion and revolt against that which God has said. I mean,
who among the born-again children of God would not confess, I love
the law of God, the law of the Lord is perfect. David said that. He said it is a wonderful pathway
to go in. We love the truth of God. We are not in rebellion against
it if we have been born again by the Spirit of God. Now the
flesh, on the other hand, hates that, does it not? And that flesh
will continually grind at you day after day after day because
it is in rebellion against the things of God. But the man who
is born again by the Spirit of God loves the law of God. And so when the Scripture says
here, blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven. He is saying there,
blessed is he whose rebellion... See, the Lord isn't waiting for
you to be conformed to the law of God and saying, Now that I've
seen you're going to walk in that way, I will forgive your
iniquity. But He has forgiven the rebellion,
the very nature of sin that's within us. He doesn't even hold
that against us. Blessed is that man who's transgression,
who's very being of rebellion. I mean, the woman taking in adultery. I mean, her whole life was spent
in rebellion, the woman at the well. Her life was one spent
in rebellion against God, was it not? The Lord said, Go call
your husband. She said, I don't have a husband.
He said, No. He said, But you've had five,
and the one you're living with now is not your husband. She
was in rebellion against the law of God, was she not? She
was transgressing. She was blessed, was she not?
Because the Lord forgave her transgression. You see, and that's
what it says, He is blessed is he whose rebellion, whose revolt
against the Word of God is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Not only
is our sin nature. forgiven. Not only are we not
considered as outcasts because of what we are, I mean, we see
this illustrated, I believe, when the Lord spoke to His disciples
in the garden, and they could not pray with Him, and He said,
the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. He understood
what they were by nature. He created them as they were,
but He forgave them. I mean, would not the inability
to do the will of God, to love the way of God, which men can't
love the way of God. You can't just love the way of
God. You can tell a man all day long, love the way of God. Is
he going to do it? No, he can't do it. It's impossible
that he would do it by nature because his nature is contrary
to it. But you see, the Lord, His people, He has forgiven that,
has He not? He doesn't look at His people.
as those rebels. He doesn't look at us as rebels
that He has to tamp down and keep under control, but He looks
at us as His children. And He does not hold those things
against us, but He has also covered our sin that is the result of
our rebellion. Not simply our rebellious nature,
but the sin that we have committed is covered. Taken away is what
that literally means. It means, as the Lord said, He
would take away our sins as far as east is from the west and
remember them no more. They are gone. Happy is the man
who is in a place like that. Now, what can a man do to put
himself in that position? Now, there are plenty of people
out there that will tell you, well, there are all kinds of
things you can do. Well, there is not one thing in the world
you can do. You see, this is the blessing of God. How can
a man cause his sin to be forgiven? He can't. There's not a thing
he can do about it. If God doesn't do it, brethren,
it's not going to happen. But blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputeth not iniquity. Now that word imputed is a wonderful
word. It's a glorious word. And it
has to do with counting something a certain way. But it's more
than that. I think the word, if you look
at it right on down to its root, it literally means to penetrate. That which penetrates. Now, it's
like when you take and dye a piece of cloth. Now, you can take a
white piece of cloth and it's white and you can put dye upon
it and change the color of it. And then that cloth is no longer
white, but it has become the color of whatever the dye was.
That's imputed. You see, that dye is imputed
to that cloth. And so it is that. That cloth
is red. Someone said, well, no, that
cloth is white. It's just got some dye on it.
No, that cloth is red. Because it's had the dye put
upon it. And dear brethren, that's the
picture of the imputed righteousness of Christ. It has been put on
us. It has been put in us in that
way, in the sense that it cannot be taken away from us. It won't
be taken away from us. It has been given to us. It's
imputed to us. The righteousness of Christ has
been laid to our account, so much so that it is our account. See, our account is in heaven,
and it's clean, it's pure, it's righteous. And the Father sees
His children in Christ, in His righteousness, because we have
none of our own. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity. He didn't say He didn't have
any. He didn't say He wasn't born in it. It doesn't say that
he hasn't committed it. It says that the Father does
not impute it. It's not counted against him.
It's taken away. In whose spirit there is no guile. That is, we're not faking. See,
religion's about faking. You know, if you do enough of
this or you do enough of that, then you'll be doing alright. And every man that walks in any
sort of religion where he is claiming to be walking in righteousness,
he is faking it. He knows he is faking it, really.
I mean, you know, when a man goes along, he knows it is fake,
but he is willing to live with the fake. See, God's people,
those in whom the Spirit of God works, I am not interested in
faking it, dear brother. I want somebody to tell me the
truth. I want somebody to tell me the truth about what I am.
I want them to tell me the truth about who Christ is. I want them
to tell me the truth about what Christ has done. We want no God. You see, there
is no deception. in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
It's not trying to get folks in. You know, some of these,
and I'm not going to pick on particular false religions, but
there are some religions that kind of get you in the door,
and then later on they tell you the whole story. You know, they
want to get you in and get you settled in, and then they say,
by the way, we believe that Satan was the
brother of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, if they had told you that
to start with, you would have never swallowed that, would you?
But you see, little by little, these false teachings come in. They don't tell you the whole
truth all at once because they want to get you in first. Now,
dear brethren, we're not interested in getting anybody in. We just
want to tell them the truth. We want to declare the whole
Gospel of Jesus Christ. And if we find out that something
is not true, we want somebody to tell us about it, don't we?
I mean, I don't want to go on in error. I want to know the
truth. "...in whose Spirit there is no guile. When I kept silent,
my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day. For day
and night my hand was heavy upon me, and my moisture was turned
to the drought of summer's sea-lough." I believe this is in a measure,
the Lord Jesus Christ speaking concerning the weight of sin
upon him, but that is not primarily what it is, although that can
be found there. But it is found, it is primarily
an instructive measure, David speaking about having the conviction
of sin upon him, and who that the Spirit of God performs a
work in. isn't going to be convicted by
sin. The Spirit of God has come into
the world to convince men of sin, righteousness, and judgment.
And wherever the Spirit of God is, the concept of a man knowing
that he's a sinner is going to be present. And if a man doesn't
know himself to be a sinner, he can be sure that the Spirit
of God has never visited him. Because that is one of the works
that he does. But the purpose of that is not
so that he goes around with a long face all day and is dragging
his feet and saying, I'm a sinner. I mean, that's not the purpose
of it. Now that may be what happens. And when the Spirit of God works
on us hard enough and shows us what we are by nature, the more
He shows, it causes us from time to time to be doing that, does
it not? I mean, you ever drag your feet? and say, oh, woe is
me. There ain't no way I could be
one of the children of God. Well, dear brethren, David said,
when I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring
all the day. He said there was in me an internal
struggle. My bones waxed old within me. It was dragging me down and ruining
me when I kept silence. For day and night thy hand was
heavy upon me." Yes, the Lord is heavy-handed upon His children
because He would teach them what they are by nature. He won't
leave His sheep to perish, but He'll bring them out of the wilderness,
and He'll show them what the wilderness is, and He'll show
them their affinity for the wilderness. He'll teach them that if He lets
them go, they go right back into the wilderness. or day and night thy hand was
heavy upon me, my moisture is turned to drought or something,
I don't find any relief. I'm dried up like a potsherd
within me. I can't do anything. But then
look, and see this word, selah, now that word literally means
pause. Now, the Bible scholars, they're not
all absolutely in agreement with one another as to what that means
when you see Selah in the Psalms. Some think it meant a musical
pause, but it does mean to pause. And I think it's put here, that's
a good place to stop, isn't it? I mean, that's a good place to
take a breath. We're weighed down under sin. I mean, you know,
when a man is weighed down under sin, he wants some relief, does
he not? I mean, any way he can get it.
And sometimes it's hard to find relief. But there's always relief
right here if the Spirit of God is pleased to give it to us and
to show it to us. And he said this, I acknowledge
my sin. He said, I was weighed down. Now, the happy preachers today,
they don't want you to acknowledge your sin. No! No! Sin! No! Don't talk about sin! No, while we're, you know, be
upbeat, be strong, have faith, do good. I mean, just forget
about all that sin stuff. We don't worry about that anymore.
Is that what he said here? He said, no. He said, when I
was in such a state as this, he said, what did I do? I acknowledged
my sin. Isn't that exactly what John
said? He said, if we say we have no sin, the truth is not in us. But he said, if we sin, we have
an advocate with the Father. And if we ask, He will forgive
us our sins and forgive us of all unrighteousness. Did John
mean by that? And did David imply this? That God's waiting up in heaven?
He said, man, I want to forgive him, but I just can't. Because
he hasn't asked me yet. I've done everything I can to
forgive him, but he won't ask me. Oh, I hope that he asks me
so I can forgive him. Is that the picture? No. Dear brethren, the forgiveness
of sin and the blessing of it comes to us through the confession
of our sin. It's not that God then forgives
our sin, it's that we come to the place where we understand
that He forgives our sin. Because He has forgiven our sin. Is that not what it said up there?
Blessed is he whose transgression is covered, whose sin is covered,
whose transgression is forgiven. He said, I acknowledge my sin
unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I kept nothing
back. Lord, you see me for what I am.
I don't have one shred of righteousness in my hands to bring unto thee.
What a glorious place that a man could be brought to to acknowledge
his sin before God. I said, I will confess my transgressions
to the Lord, and thou forgavest me the iniquity of my sin. The
wickedness of my heart, thou forgavest it all. Oh, what a
place of rejoicing there is then for the sons of God when we acknowledge
what we are. And by the Spirit of God, He
teaches us what we have been made in Jesus Christ, because
what we have been made in Jesus Christ far exceeds the depths
of what we are by nature. For the iniquity, thou forgavest
the iniquity of my sin. Selah. Another pause there. A good place to take a breath.
Wow. Boy, we were down. Now we're up. Oh, thank God. Well, where do we go from here?
I mean, then do we go out and brag about how great we are? No. He said, For this shall every
one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be
found. Surely in the floods of great
waters they shall not come nigh thee. He gives praise unto God,
does he not? He says, Thou art my hiding place. Thou shalt preserve me from troubles.
Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah. Take another breath. Oh, praise
God. He has encompassed me about with
songs of deliverance. Well, how did he do it? By sending
His Spirit into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father, where we acknowledge
our sin and He forgives us of our sin. Now how does He forgive
us of our sin? I'm talking about how does He
apply that to us? By showing us what? Jesus Christ. the righteousness of Christ,
the One who has taken upon Himself our sin, who has imputed us His
righteousness and has imputed our sin unto Himself. Is that
not true? I mean, is that not the place
where the godly pray? Everyone that is godly pray unto
Thee in a time. Surely in the floods of great
waters they shall not come nigh unto Him. We cannot be destroyed,
dear brethren, What a glorious thing. See, why do we preach
the gospel? I mean, you know, the man who
is looking at improving in his religion, he does not want you
to just come down here and tell him every week that Jesus Christ
died and paid for it. He wants you to tell him how
to live his life. He wants you to tell Him, you know, how to
have a better marriage and a happy life and how to pray and how
to do this and how to do that and all these things. But you
see, the people of God who are acknowledging their sin before
God, it's like a breath of fresh air every day when they hear
that Jesus Christ the righteous stands in their room and stands
before Almighty God. What a glorious thing! What a
wonderful place to be! Thou shalt compass me about with
songs of deliverance." Oh, what a glorious thing, dear brethren,
to be given a song in the night of praise unto Him. Songs of
deliverance. Selah. And then the psalmist
said, and the Lord said through the psalmist, I will instruct
thee and teach thee in the way thou shalt do. How does a man
learn the way of God? Does he learn the way of God
because somebody writes a book and tells him how to do it step
by step? No, the Spirit of God teaches
him because He teaches him that the only help he can find is
in Christ. When the Spirit of God has come,
He will not speak of Himself, but He will glorify me, the Lord
Jesus said. I will instruct thee and teach
thee in the way thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine eye. I will show you the way, because
that's the way that I will go. 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." He said, you're
the children of God. You're the sons of God. Don't
be as those who out there have to have a threat placed upon
their head. I mean, you know, some people,
they think that unless you hold a sword over somebody's head
and threaten to chop their head off, they won't follow the Lord. Now, the children of grace are
caused to follow the Lord because they desire to do so. He said,
don't be like the mule. Or the horse that has to have
a bridle put in their mouth to turn them one way or the other.
Don't be like that. He said, you're not like that.
You're the children of God. Be not like that. Lest they come
near a horse or something like that, he ought to turn around
and run over you if you don't have some way to control him.
Not so, the children of God. Many sorrows. shall be to the
wicked, but he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall come
past him about." Now, hopefully we've preached that message that
there are many sorrows to the wicked. I can't begin to imagine
the depth of the sorrows that shall be to those who despise
the way of God, who go on in their own way. This is a true
thing. But you see, that's not primarily
the message we've been sent to preach, although that is a true
thing, and we must not shrink back from declaring it. For the
wicked shall indeed be compassed about with many sorrows. But you see, the message we've
been given is to the people of God, to those whom He describes
right up there in the first. Blessed is he whose transgressions Now, there are some that tell
us the Lord has forgiven all people. Well, that is not true. There is no forgiveness to the
soul. And those whom He describes, many sorrows shall be to the
wicked, they are not described in, Blessed are he whose sins
are covered. Because the sins of all men are
not covered. The sins of those who call upon
His name and acknowledge their sins, their sins are covered.
You see, they're the ones described there. They're the ones who are
happy because they've been set free. They have been blessed. But he that trusteth in the Lord,
mercy shall come past him. See, this is the blessed is the
man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth
in the way of sinners. Now, is that psalm put out there
so that we say, well, you know, you need to walk in this way?
Well, we would instruct men to walk in the way of the Lord and
hope that they would, but I don't have any expectation whatsoever
that any man in whom the Spirit of God is not pleased to work
will ever have any consideration whatsoever of the way of God.
The only thing he'll look at is something that he... Well,
it's alright for some people. You've heard people say that.
Well, that's okay for some people. Not for me. Well, it may not
be. You know, I wish I could convince a man otherwise, but
I can't. Because, dear brethren, I wouldn't
be convinced myself except for the mercy of God. I wouldn't
have any consideration whatsoever of what I'm telling you right
now if it wasn't at the mercy of God revealed in Jesus Christ
have been visited upon my poor soul. Blessed is the man whose
transgression is forgiven. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice,
ye righteous. Let the redeemed of the Lord
say so. Rejoice! You see, this is the
place God's people are called to walk in, is a place of rejoicing. Now does that mean we're never
going along like this? No, we are. But you see, that's
not what He called us to do. He didn't call us to walk around
with our heads hanging low. But He called us to rejoice.
Why? Because our iniquity is removed. Oh, what a glorious place. and shout for joy all ye that
are upright in heart." Those whom he has described right there.
Oh, what a place. What a blessing is given to the
sons of God. You know, the wicked, if they only knew, they would be
hanging their head every day, wouldn't they? And walking like
that. The sons of God We've been taught
what we are, but yet we find ourselves sometimes walking like that. But you see, I can't cause
that to happen to myself. I can tell you all this stuff
and an hour later I'll be walking around like this. But that's not what we're called
to. We're called to be the sons of God. To walk in the light. that He's given us. To rejoice,
reckon yourselves dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God
in Jesus Christ. Oh, what a glorious place! What
a wondrous place! Shout for joy, all you that are
upright in heart. Why are you upright in heart?
Are you upright in heart because you just didn't do some bad things?
No. You're upright because the Lord
caused you to see some things that cause you to pick your head
up and say, Lord, I'm a sinner, but You're the Savior. Oh, help
me. And He does. Oh, you know, there's
that old saying, the Lord helps those that help Himself. There's
not a lick of truth in that. Not a bit. The Lord helps those
that can't help themselves. that acknowledge their sin before
Almighty God. And the fact that they do that
is the evidence that He's already helped them. Because He's already
taken them from darkness to light. The only way that a man can confess
his sin before God is to walk in the light. Like Job walked
in the light. Lord, I heard of you by the here
and the there. I've been a good religious man all my life. I've
been a moral man. I've been upright. I've been
doing all these things." But he said, now, mine eyes seeth
thee, and I abhor myself, and I repent in dust and ashes. He
acknowledged his sin before God. Paul acknowledged his sin before
God on the road to Damascus, did he not? He said, Who art
thou, Lord? And oh, I can't imagine really
what must have went through his mind when the Lord said, I'm
Jesus. And I'm sure he must have thought,
well, you know, I'm fixing to just be destroyed here right
now. But the Lord said, I have appointed you to a thing. Blessed is the man whose transgression
is forgiven and whose sin is covered.