Psalm 32, David writes of the
blessedness of having one's transgression forgiven and your sin covered. He speaks of the blessedness
of salvation. And the psalm is entitled the
Psalm of David Maskell because it's a psalm of instruction or
teaching. Here in this psalm, in the subject
it centres on, is very much the centre of the Gospel. That man's
great need before God is to have his transgression forgiven and
his sin covered. Man's great need is to stand
before God righteous. forgiven as though he had never
sinned. For unless he does, then as Paul
says in Romans, the wrath of God from heaven above burns against
his sin. Without righteousness, we are
lost and we are condemned already. And the great message of the
Gospel is that in Jesus Christ, there is forgiveness of sin. In Jesus Christ, God has covered
the sin of his people. In Jesus Christ, in God's own
Son, God has blotted out their sin, taken it away, delivered
them, and brought them unto peace. with he with whom they were once
at enmity. Your great need and my great
need is to have your sin and your transgression forgiven,
covered, blotted out. Your great need is of salvation. And in the 32nd Psalm David brings
us instruction regarding your great need. It's a didactic psalm,
a doctrinal psalm. He writes, 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 everyone
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 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
bitten 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. The psalm is divided into four
sections. The first three end in selah,
pause. And in the second section, in
verse 5, having spoken of the blessedness of the Gospel, having
spoken of the blessed man whose transgression is forgiven and
whose sin is covered, under whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity
and in whose spirit there is no guile, David speaks in verse
5, of that point to which he arrived and that point to which
we must all arrive before we will ever know such blessedness.
He says in verse 5, 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. Say lah. I acknowledged my sin unto thee
and mine iniquity have I not hid. Now what a statement and
how hard it is for us, for you, for I to ever get there. How rare it is for any man, woman
or child to truly acknowledge their sin and hide not their
iniquity. It's a rare thing for somebody
to confess that they were wrong, to confess what they have done,
to confess their sin, to hide it not away. It is rare for men
not to seek to justify all that they do, say, and think in order
to present themselves as self-righteous. it is rare for a man or a woman
to acknowledge their sin and not just an individual sin not
just to acknowledge that I was wrong about that or I was wrong
to say or do that occasionally when they're found out they'll
own up to something but it's rare to acknowledge our sin our
condition not just that we've done wrong in this or that but
that we are sinful that we are full of iniquity that all that
we do and say and think is polluted and stained and corrupted by
sin, that we are sinful through and through. I acknowledged my
sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I am vile, David
said. I am evil. I am full of sin. I deserve thine
anger, O Lord. I deserve thy wrath. I deserve
to be slayed. There is no good in me. I acknowledge my sin. How hard
this is to do. Have you ever truly acknowledged
your sin before man or before God? Or do you always find an
excuse for everything that you are and everything that you've
done? Every time somebody says, why have you done this? Do you
always find a reason? And does the reason always involve
someone else who you can put the blame on? Or who you can
say caused you to do this? Do you always try to hide your
sin? When you know you've done something
wrong do you always try to cover it up and conceal it? Most do. I'm sure you do. I'm sure you
have. The natural man never acknowledges
his sin. The natural man never confesses. The natural man always justifies
himself. The natural man always hides
his iniquity. Paul says in Romans 2, as it
is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that
understandeth. There is none that seeketh after
God. They are all gone out of the
way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that
doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher. Our mouths are like graves, out
of which come putrefying stench. Our words that we speak are iniquitous,
vile, self-justifying, full of pride, bringing glory to ourselves,
never glory unto the living God who created us and sustains us. We are full of hatred, full of
love for self and hatred for anyone that gets in our way.
Our mouths, our throats are an open sepulchre. With their tongues
they have used deceit, you and I. The poison of asps is under
their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Which is why so many are at warfare
with so many others on a daily basis, always fighting, always
arguing, always complaining, always hating. Mouths full of
cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed
blood. Destruction and misery are in
their ways. And the way of peace have they
not known? There is no fear of God before
their eyes. The way of peace have they not
known? Where is peace in this world
in which we live today? True peace. We hear of wars and
rumours of wars. We hear of violence and hatred
in every town, every village, every city. we hear of hatred
and anger, distrust, complaint, rebellion in every household. Where is peace? Where is the
way of peace in this world? 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. Well, we've just read of all
men, and their throats as open sepulchres, and what comes forth
from their tongues, and the poison of asps, And yet here's a man
of whom David speaks in whose spirit there is no guile. Here's a man who acknowledged
his sin unto God and whose iniquity he hid not. Have you acknowledged your sin?
Have you acknowledged it before God and before men? Have you not hid it? Have you
confessed it? Do you know that you are full
of sin? Do you know and believe that
you are iniquitous? Do you know that you have a great
need to be cleansed, to be washed, to be forgiven? how hard this
is. And yet this state of which David
speaks, this acknowledgement of his sin, has to precede any
understanding, any comprehension, any experience of the blessedness
of which he speaks in verse 1. You will not know the blessedness
of your transgression being forgiven or your sin being covered until
you've trodden the pathway which brings you to acknowledge your
sin before God and to cease from hiding it. You'll never get to
that blessedness until you come here and yet so many who take
the name of Christ, or who pretend to be religious, or who want
the salvation they hear of in the gospel, think that they can
get to it, think that they can receive it, think that they can
claim it, without ever truly knowing or recognizing or confessing
their sin. Oh, with everyone they'll say
they're not perfect. along with everyone they'll know
that they have their faults and their failings but they won't
confess they haven't confessed they don't know the experience
that David did of confessing that they are sin but they'll only truly know the
blessing that he speaks of when they've come that way because
it's such a blessing when you know what you are, when you know
what you've done, and when you discover that in the gospel,
through Jesus Christ, through his blood and his death, that
there is forgiveness, that there is a covering for your sin. when you come to this point of
knowing that you're nothing, you're vile, there's no good
in you and that the wrath of God rightly burns against you
and you're lost if you're left to yourself when you've come
to that place when the Holy Spirit has shown you what you are when
the Spirit of God has come upon your soul and made it plain unto
you just what you are, just what you've done and just where you
stand before a holy God when he's revealed the holiness of
God in measure to you and you feel how vile you are in the
light of it then when you discover that because
Christ has died that if Christ died for you and if he shed his
blood for you and if that blood covered all of your sin when
you discover that you will discover the great blessing that that
which you thought could never be covered that that which you
thought could never be hid that that evil which you thought could
not ever be forgiven is when you discover that in Christ it
is if you're his if he shed his blood for you then you will know
the joy the peace the relief the happiness the blessing of
which David speaks You'll never know any of this blessing until
you can acknowledge your sin. Otherwise, the whole psalm, the
blessing of which David speaks, the joy to be found in the gospel,
however much you may profess it, it's all just words. Now there are many who say they
follow Christ. There are many who say they love
the Lord Jesus. There are many who say they have
been saved by Christ. There are many who profess His
name and who profess the forgiveness of their sins. for whom it is
all just words. Empty words. An empty profession
built upon nothing but sand because they've never acknowledged their
sin. They've never been brought to
be nothing in the presence of God. They've never been humbled. They've stayed just as they are,
but taken hold of something which is not theirs. They've tried
to claim the blood of Christ and his salvation, when he never
died for them, because they've never been brought to know they're
a sinner. Thou shalt call his name Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins. Salvation is a salvation from
our sins. Christ Jesus came into this world
to save sinners, not to save the self-righteous. He came to
save sinners who know their sinners. Sinners who have acknowledged
their sin. Sinners who by the Spirit of
God are brought to know their need and are brought to praise
His name when they discover just what He's done for them. How needy are you? How poor are
you? The needy are the poor. The needy are the ones who have
not. The needy before God are the
ones who are full of sin and have no righteousness. They know
their poverty before God. They know that they don't have
a shred of righteousness. They're without. They've got
nothing. I've got nothing before God. I'm poor. I am needy. Not physically nothing. It's
not a case of how much money you've got in the bank account.
It's what you've got spiritually before God. Have you got any
righteousness? God saves the poor and the needy,
those who have no righteousness and know they have no righteousness. Are you rich or are you poor? A young man, a young rich ruler
came before God and he professed to keep all of the law and God
told him, Christ told him to give away all that he had and
give it unto the poor and he found it too much. because he had an outward profession
but he had too much self-righteousness Christ spoke unto him in terms
of material things as it were he was physically rich and he
didn't want to give up those riches but it was a picture of
his spiritual condition He had too much trust in his own keeping
of God's law, in his own self-righteousness, in his own religion, that he
didn't realise that before God he was actually nothing. He didn't
realise that all of that obedience counted for nothing. And he wouldn't
give it all up and throw it all away and say before God, I've
got nothing, I'm vile. He wouldn't acknowledge his sin
unto God. Will you? Can you? Have you? Are you rich? Or are you poor? righteous or
sinful, godly or wicked. Jesus said elsewhere that it
is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for
a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. By which he means
those who are rich in their own eyes spiritually, who have something. They have something before God. They come to God saying, Lord,
Lord, I've done this, I've done that. I am this, I am that. I deserve salvation. Because they have something.
they cannot climb, as it were, through the eye of a needle.
Christ says it's easier for a camel with a great hump on its back
to get through that needle than for these sort of rich, these
spiritually rich, these self-righteous rich. But someone who has nothing
can easily pass through the eye of a needle because there's nothing.
They've got nothing, they're as thin as a rake. They've got
no righteousness, nothing. It's those who are nothing, those
who have nothing. Those who have acknowledged their
sin unto thee, unto God, and their iniquity they have not
hid. Those who have confessed their transgressions unto the
Lord, who can say a no. that he forgave the iniquity
of their sin. Are you poor or are you rich? Are you righteous or are you
wicked? David, by the grace of God, for
he could not do it himself, he did not bring himself to this
place, by the grace of God he was brought down by the spirit
of God he was taught what he was and he was brought to acknowledge
his sin before his maker have you? this is not a natural thing
this is not possible naturally Naturally speaking, it is impossible,
impossible that any should truly come to this place. They may
do it in measure with their lips, they may make a show and an appearance
and say, oh I'm a sinner, I'm this, I'm that. They may profess
to be humble, but all the time there's a pride in their religious
standing before God. all the time there's something
they're clinging on to. It's impossible to truly acknowledge
our sin before Him. It's impossible to not hide our
iniquity. It's impossible to confess our
transgressions unto the Lord. It's impossible. Which is why
you can't do it. Which is why you haven't done
it. Unless God has brought you to
the point. where he's done it through you
it's impossible man doesn't acknowledge his sin we see it all around
and we see it all inside it's all over we live in a world of
rich people in their own eyes righteous people in their own
eyes but wicked people in God's eyes. People who will not acknowledge
their sin, have you? It's impossible. You cannot. and you will not and you do not
by nature but what is impossible with man is possible with God
that's the gospel that's the gospel which David is presenting
us under here he's presenting us with something which is impossible
and yet God for him made it possible God took him and made him do
that which by nature he couldn't do before God he was broken he
had confessed his transgressions and as a consequence he came
to know the forgiveness of his iniquity and the blessedness
of having his sin covered. The man who knows the blessing
of having his transgressions forgiven and his sin covered
is firstly a man who's brought to acknowledge that sin and confess
that sin before his God. You can't get to the blessing
without first passing through here. And this acknowledgement of sin
mostly and critically includes the acknowledgement of our sin
in religion before God. acknowledging our self-righteousness
and our foolishness before God in days gone by in thinking that
God would or should bless us save us justify us because of
something we have done thought or said because of something
that we are That's our great sin before God, that we come
thinking he should bless us because of what we've done or are. That he should save us because
of our decision to follow him, our willingness to follow him
or our works or our righteousness before him. Because in so doing,
in so thinking, We are full of unbelief in the truth of his
gospel. God says that we are sinful through
and through, we are utterly totally depraved. God makes it clear
in his word from Genesis to Revelation that man is fallen, he is lost,
there is none that doeth good, there is none that is righteous,
there is none that seeketh after him. He makes it plain unto us
what we are and the Spirit of God confirms it and acknowledges
it in the Gospel. The power of the Gospel that
goes forth begins with that revelation from heaven above of the wrath
of God, which has gone out against all the unrighteousness of men.
unrighteousness which hinders and holds back the truth. Because
that unrighteousness says no I will find a way to heaven,
my works will save me, my decision is enough, God is not true. It resists, it forces back, it
fights, it contends, it's unbelief. our great iniquity before God,
is unbelief in the truth of the gospel that man is dead in trespasses
and sins, man is totally depraved, man is under wrath and condemned
already, and God, and God alone, must save. there's our great
unbelief, there's our great sin and when David acknowledged his
sin unto God and he hid not his iniquity, in essence that was
at the heart of it, not just the wrong that he'd done, not
just the lies that he'd done, not just the self-serving that
he'd done, not just all these different things that are symptoms,
but that sin at the root of his being, which is unbelief in God
and His Word and His salvation. Unbelief in the Son of God. Unbelief
that the only way that God could save sinners was to give His
own Son for them because only by sacrificing His Son in the
place of dead sinners could God justify the ungodly. Unbelief. that God justifies by grace through
faith alone. Unbelief that salvation is not
dependent in any way, shape or measure upon the works or the
will or the worth of man. Unbelief that before God we all,
you and I included, are nothing. that's your sin have you acknowledged
before God that you are nothing and that if he's to save you
it will be all from his grace all his doing all his love all
his mercy this is the great truth that Paul picks up in the heart
of Romans in chapter 4 when he quotes David from this very psalm. In speaking of Abraham the father
of the faithful and what Abraham discovered that he was not justified
by his works or his will but by the grace of God that he was
justified by faith That simply by believing in what God had
done, that he was saved. And that even that belief was
given unto him by God. That wasn't something he had
by nature, something he worked up. God opened his eyes, he saw,
he believed, he trusted, and he came to see that it was all
of God. And in expounding this, Paul
shows us what David had written and believed in this psalm. What shall we say then that Abraham
our father as pertaining to the flesh have found? For if Abraham
were justified by works he have whereof to glory, but not before
God. For what sayeth the scripture?
Abraham believed God and it was counted under him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the
reward, not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that
worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly,
his faith is counted for righteousness. Abraham had no righteousness. But he looked unto a Saviour
who brought in righteousness for him, and as a result his
faith in looking to that righteousness was counted as his righteousness,
because that faith looked to another's righteousness. It looked
unto Christ, it looked unto the righteousness of God, made his
through the death and the blood of Christ. Even as David also
describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth
righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose
iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is
the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. How if this blessedness
then upon the circumcision only or upon the uncircumcision also?
For we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness.
How was it then reckoned? When he was in circumcision or
in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. Before he'd done anything, before
he'd obeyed the command of God that God gave him after he believed,
God said, well be circumcised as a sign of these things. Show
that the flesh has been cut off, show that your works has nothing
to do with it. Let us show in a physical picture
that the flesh has nothing to do with your salvation. But he
wasn't saved when he obeyed the instruction to follow that command
of circumcision, he was already saved. He received the sign of
circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith, which he had, yet
being uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all them
that believe, not just Jews but Gentiles, though they be not
circumcised. that righteousness might be imputed
unto them also and the father of circumcision to them who are
not of the circumcision only but who also walk in the steps
of that faith of our father Abraham which he had being yet uncircumcised
for the promise that he should be the heir of the world was
not to Abraham or to his seed through the law but through the
righteousness of faith. A righteousness which comes through
the death of Christ on Abraham's behalf. For if they which are
of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made
of none effect. Because the law worketh wrath,
but where no law is, there is no transgression. therefore it is of faith that
it might be by grace to the end the promise might be sure to
all the seed not only not to that only which is of the law
but to that also which is of the faith of abraham who is the
father of us all this salvation wasn't just for the jews under
the law it was for the gentiles without the law It's not dependent
upon the law. It doesn't come through obedience
to the law. It's not wrought by our works. It's wrought by God and God alone,
through the death of His Son, a substitute in the place of
His people. David speaks in this psalm, Blessed
is he whose transgression is forgiven. I will confess my transgressions
unto the Lord. And Paul in Romans 5 here makes
plain where those transgressions find their legal standing. The
law worketh wrath for where no law is there is no transgression. Everyone that's under the law
breaks the law and they bring forth transgressions. They transgress
the command and the law of God. You have transgressions before
God because you've never obeyed his law. Every day you break
it. And every day you find yourself
under that law you'll continue to break it. Because the law
will work if Rothschild says do this and you get angry and
do the opposite. Just as we see the world over. When a parent instructs a child,
the natural instinct of the child is to rebel against the instruction
and do the opposite. Far from bringing obedience,
the command works wrath. And far from bringing forth righteousness,
the law worked wrath in the fleshly hearts of men, in the rebellious
and sinful hearts of men, and brought forth transgressions.
But, Paul says, where no law is, there is no transgression. Where no law is, there is no
transgression. And the wonder of the gospel
is that Christ, made under the law, as David was under the law,
as Abraham was brought to be under the command of circumcision,
but not the law of Moses. Where Moses was under the law,
where you and I, spiritually speaking, morally speaking, before
God may find ourselves under law. The wonder of the gospel
is that God has taken his son, made under the law substitutionally,
that he may lay the transgressions of his people committed against
that law upon that son. and he may take those transgressions
away through his blood through taking the penalty of the law
against them against himself through taking the judgment and
the wrath of God which they have earned under that law against
himself and taking that penalty taking that judgment and taking
the very law itself out of sight Paul tells us in the epistles
that the handwriting of ordinances, the writing of the law, the Ten
Commandments, were nailed to the cross of Christ and taken
away, taken out of sight. They were blotted out so that
the believer is delivered from under the law. He dies with Christ
and in his death the final answer to the law is wrought. The penalty
is answered. The law demands death and in
Christ the believer is dead. He dies unto the law and he rises
again with Christ, the other side of death, the other side
of the grave, where there is no law. And where there is no
law, there is no transgression. He's been delivered from it.
Delivered from it's condemnation. Delivered from it's judgement.
Delivered from it's penalty. Delivered from it's rule. He
lives in glory in heaven above. Risen with Christ in a different
world in eternity. Outside of the jurisdiction of
the law. And where there is no law there
is no transgression. But leave him under the law.
Leave his flesh under the law. and you'll see a man who transgresses.
Oh the folly of so many, is that they cling on to the law. Even
having believed on Christ, they cling on to the law like the
Galatians they did. And like so many did that we
read of in the epistles. They cling on to it thinking
that they must have it in Christ and all their clinging on brings
forth more wrath. For the law worketh wrath. It
brings forth more sin, it fuels sin as Paul speaks of in Romans
7. It just comes, the commandment comes and it causes them to sin
and it slays them. And they cling on to it thinking
it will prosper them and bring forth righteousness when all
it does is bring forth guilt and condemnation. It brings forth
more transgression. It brings forth death. But blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven
and whose sin is covered. Because when Christ died, he
delivered his people from their sins. He took them away, he blotted
them out and he took that law which was against them and took
it out of sight. Now these things were not written
unto Abraham alone and for his sake alone but for us also to
whom it shall be imputed if we believe on him that raised up
Jesus our Lord from the dead who was delivered for our offences
if we're his and was raised again for our justification Oh have
you believed on Jesus our Lord who rose from the dead, who was
offered up as sacrifice for sin, who was delivered for our offences? Was he delivered for your offences? Was he slain for your iniquity? Was he condemned for your sin? Was he judged under the fires
of God's wrath for your unbelief, for your pride, for your self-righteousness? for your rebellion, for your
transgression, for your iniquity, for your hiding of your sin and
concealing of your sin and justifying yourself before others. Was he
slain for the filthy iniquity that spews forth from your evil
heart? Was he slain for you? Did he
suffer for you? Was he delivered for your offences? And was he raised again for your
justification? If he was, then you with David
will have acknowledged your sin under him. And if you haven't
yet, but he died for you, if he loved you, and gave himself
for you if he loved you that he gave himself for you and took
all that wrath upon himself if he loved you then the Spirit
of God will show you what you are and one day when life is
breathed into your soul you with David will acknowledge your sin
unto him your iniquity will you not hide And you will confess
your transgressions unto the Lord, because you will know that
He has forgiven the iniquity of your sin. O to be brought
there by the grace, the almighty, the overwhelming, the irresistible
grace of God in the power of His Gospel. O for the Gospel,
in power by the Spirit of God, to bring us to that place, to
behold a Saviour slain for sinners, to confess our sin before Him,
and to be brought to cry out in praise and in joy with David. Blessed is he whose transgression
is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man under whom
the Lord imputeth not sin, and in whose spirit there is no guile. knowing that the only true one
who was of that nature was Christ. But through Christ and his death,
you in him are blessed forevermore. Amen.