SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
1/24/2012 9:01:51 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2
Sin & Forgiveness
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm
32
Message
of the verses: “1 A Psalm of David.
A Maskil: How blessed is he whose
transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered! 2 How blessed is the man to
whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit!
3 When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away Through my groaning all
day long. 4 For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was
drained away as with the fever heat of summer. Selah. 5 I acknowledged my sin
to You, And my iniquity I did not hide; I said, "I will confess my
transgressions to the LORD"; And You forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah. 6
Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to You in a time when You may be
found; Surely in a flood of great waters they will not reach him.
“7 You are my hiding place; You preserve me
from trouble; You surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah. 8 I will
instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you
with My eye upon you. 9 Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no
understanding, Whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check,
Otherwise they will not come near to you. 10 Many are the sorrows of the
wicked, But he who trusts in the LORD, lovingkindness shall surround him. 11 Be
glad in the LORD and rejoice, you righteous ones; And shout for joy, all you
who are upright in heart.”
In today’s SD we continue looking at
Psalm 32 and hopefully will be able to finish with this very meaningful
psalm. When we think of the different
circumstances that David found himself in so that he was then moved by the Holy
Spirit of God to write the different psalms it could make us think of Romans
8:28 where Paul writes: “And we know
that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to
those who are called according to His purpose.”
The circumstance under which David wrote Psalms 32 and 51 were not good,
yet I believe that one of the ways that God worked them out for David’s good
and for God’s glory was the writing of these two different psalms that have
brought comfort to those many, many people who have read them throughout the
ages and that is my prayer for all of us who are reading this today.
Dr. Wiersbe wrote at the end of his
introduction these words: “In this
psalm, David shared four basic facts about sin and forgiveness that need to be
understood by every believer.” We
continue with the second fact this morning.
The
Folly of Impenitence (vv.3-4): “3
When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away Through my groaning all
day long. 4 For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was
drained away as with the fever heat of summer. Selah.”
David was hurting a lot after his
sin with Bathsheba and her husband Uriah and this was probably a period of
about a year when David was around fifty years of age. David was an outdoors man as he lived much of
his early life outside taking care of sheep and then after that he lived with
King Saul, which may have been inside for some part of his life then, but
fighting the king’s battles he would have been outside too. The point is that he was a healthy man who
loved to do physical things and now we see the heavy hand of the Lord upon
David and his physical stamina was dwindling, and perhaps he may have been
wondering why. We can read Hebrews 12:1-13 and find out that God’s chastening
is proof that He loves us and that we are genuinely His children.
Dr. Wiersbe quotes two men in his
commentary with words that help us understand why impenitence is folly. “God does not permit His children to sin
successfully” says Charles Spurgeon and John Donne who wrote “Sin is a serpent,
and he that covers sin does but keep it warm, that it may sting the more
fiercely, and dispense the venom and malignity thereof the more
effectually.” These two quotes along
with Hebrews 12:1-13 are truths that can set us free when we have unconfessed
sin and of course repentance is the key issue which we will see in the next
point.
The
Way of Deliverance (vv.5-7): “5 I
acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I did not hide; I said, "I
will confess my transgressions to the LORD"; And You forgave the guilt of
my sin. Selah. 6 Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to You in a time
when You may be found; Surely in a flood of great waters they will not reach
him. 7 You are my hiding place; You
preserve me from trouble; You surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah.”
Verse five is a very wonderful
and uplifting verse for in it we see David realizing his sin and confessing his
sin, but more than that; for he realizes that God has forgiven his sin and for
that he will rejoice in the goodness of the Lord. I don’t actually know what Selah means here
but if it is like a hardy “Amen” then that makes sense to me. This verse has to remind us of 1John
1:9: “If we confess our sins, He is
faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness.” I have mentioned before
that God has said that forgiven sins are as far away as the East is from the
West. If you start going East around the
world you will never be going West, but if you start going North around the
world you eventually will be going South.
We also spoke about the scapegoat
who would carry away the sins of the children of Israel out into the wilderness
on the Day of Atonement. This pictures
God carrying away our sins and Christ did that for us while on the cross. This
is something to rejoice about forever. Dr. Wiersbe writes “The burden of
transgression had been carried away, the debt was canceled, the twisted was
made straight, and the Lord didn’t put David’s sin on the record. Instead of imputing our sins, the Lord puts
the righteousness of Christ on our account, and we are accepted in Him (See
Rom. 4:3ff; 5:13; 2Cor. 5:19-21; Gal. 3:6).”
David did not wait when he realized
that sin was causing so much trouble to him, but he confessed his sin to the
Lord and the Lord forgave him. “Then
David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." And Nathan
said to David, "The LORD also has taken away your sin; you shall not die
(2Sam. 12:13).” Dr. Wiersbe writes
“Guilt is to the conscience what pain is to the body: it tells us that something is wrong and must
be made right, or things will get worse.”
David did not wait.
David says in verse six something
that I have had a hard time understanding “let everyone who is godly pray to
You in a time when You may be found.”
John MacArthur writes these words in his study Bible about verse
six: “David slips right back into
teaching mode in this verse, emphasizing that every person who knows the grace
of God should not presume upon that grace by putting off confession.” Now I am thinking about some verses from
1Cor. 11 that I think ties into what David is teaching in verse six, and the
verse speaks of those who were believers who did not come to God with their sin
when He could be found, and like verse six says and the note from John
MacArthur says we should come to God when He can be found: “28 But a man must examine himself, and in so
doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For he who eats and
drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body
rightly. 30 For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number
sleep. 31 But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged. 32 But
when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be
condemned along with the world.”
Now we know that the sin that David
committed with Bathsheba and the killing of her husband was forgiven by the
Lord, but there were consequences to that sin.
Dr. Wiersbe writes “God in His grace forgive us, but God in His
government says, ‘You shall reap what you have sown.” What did David reap? Bathsheba’s baby died, David’s son Amnon
raped his half sister Tamar and then her brother Absalom killed Amnon and tried
to take David’s throne, but Joab killed him.
David’s son Adonijah tried to take the scepter from Solomon and Solomon
killed him. David told Nathan that the
man who stole the little ewe lamb had to pay fourfold and even though David’s
sins were forgiven he paid fourfold.
David went into the sanctuary to
worship the Lord as seen in 2Sam. 12:15-23 and there with the other worshipers,
he was surrounded by “songs of deliverance.”
Read again Psalm 32:7.
The
Joy of Obedience (vv. 8-11): “8 I
will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel
you with My eye upon you. 9 Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no
understanding, Whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check,
Otherwise they will not come near to you. 10 Many are the sorrows of the
wicked, But he who trusts in the LORD, lovingkindness shall surround him. 11 Be
glad in the LORD and rejoice, you righteous ones; And shout for joy, all you
who are upright in heart.”
We see the word LORD in verse
eleven and we know that there are many name for God in the Scriptures, but
whenever you see the word LORD in all caps it means Jehovah.
In verses 8-9 and Psalm 51:12 which
reads, “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation And sustain me with a willing
spirit,” we see that God is assuring David that the joy of his salvation would
be restored to him.
We know from the story of David’s
sin that his thinking was not right, for in some ways he was acting like an
animal. David acted like a horse and
rushed ahead impetuously (unthinkingly, suddenly, recklessly), and the David
acted like a mule, for he was stubborn in not confessing his sin to the
Lord. I suppose that we all can relate
to this in our lives as I know that I surely can especially the impetuously
part like a horse.
As we finish this commentary from
Psalm 32 I want to again look at the ending quote for Dr. Warren Wiersbe, “When
he joined the assembly at the sanctuary of God (vv.1-2), David began his song
with the joyful announcement that God had forgiven him. Now he closed the psalm by exhorting the
others worshipers to join him in celebrating the joy of the Lord. ‘Be glad!
Rejoice! Shout for joy!’ Years later, his son Solomon would write, ‘He
who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them
will have mercy’ Proverbs 28:13 NKJV).”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I love
this psalm as it speaks to my heart. I
was 26 years old when I came to Christ and the first 25 years, at least from
age 15 on were not good years for me as I was in the world and of the world and
acted like it. My life changed after age
26 in fact in two days from now it will be 36 years since I bowed my knee to
the Lord and He changed my life forever, giving me a new destination for
eternity.
I see in this psalm forgiveness
of sin and I am so very thankful for that.
I also see that David had acted like an animal in sinning with Bathsheba
as he describes with the horse and the mule and I can relate to that and that
is why contentment is so important for me to learn as it relates to patience,
to thinking before jumping into something and trusting the Lord to lead me and
to guide me.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1. Proverbs 3:5-6.
2. Phil. 4:11b.
3. Ephesians 6:10-18.
4. Romans 12:1-2.
5. Psalm 32:8.
1/24/2012
10:43:49 AM
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