Every Christian is a person whose sins have been forgiven. And to enter into that reconciled relationship with God by which our sins are forgiven, is to enter in To a state. of blessedness. We are blessed not because we are righteous, But we are blessed because we are forgiven. It is a marvelous thing to be a Christian, isn't it?
To know that your sins are forgiven. Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and this is the Friday edition of Renewing Your Mind. In RC Sprawl's series that walks us through Psalm 51, He concludes the series, not in Psalm 51, but in Psalm 32. To allow David to paint for us the wonderful picture of the joy that comes when we know that we've been reconciled to God.
And that's the message you'll hear today. But if you'd like to hear the entire series on Psalm 51, we'll send you the DVD and unlock the series and study guide for you in the free Ligonier app. When you give a donation in support of Renewing Your Mind, at renewingyourmind.org. This is a one-day offer, so respond now while there's still time.
Well, here's Dr. Sprawl in Psalm 32. When we began our study of repentance, I made the observation. But as far as I know The only cure. for guilt.
is forgiveness. And the only necessity forgiveness. is repentance. And so there is this inseparable relationship among these three Qualities of Guilt. repentance and forgiveness.
And anyone who has gone through The pain. of genuine repentance. I am sure has also experienced the unspeakable joy Of forgiveness. And that's why. I don't want to conclude our series on repentance.
without looking to the end of repentance or the goal of repentance. which is the restoration of the soul to fellowship with God, and to the experience of that unspeakable joy of forgiveness. And Psalm 4. 32. The author of Psalm fifty one, David, gives us his feelings.
of forgiveness, where he says in verse one Blessed is he. whose transgression is forgiven. whose sin is covered. And blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity and in whose spirit There is no deceit. These powerful words of benediction are quoted in the New Testament.
As the Apostle Paul, for example, sets forth the Gospel in his epistle to the Romans. he appeals to these words from Psalm thirty two. We remember. That one of the devices that the prophets used in the Old Testament. to communicate the word of God to the people was the use of the oracle.
And there were two kinds of oracles. there were oracles of doom by which the prophet would be God's spokesman to announce the impending judgment that He would bring upon the nation. And there was also the oracle of wheel. W-E-A-L, the good news. and the bad news of judgment was prefaced by the term Cursed be.
And the good news that was announced in terms of the divine benediction. was prefaced by the word Blessed. That's why in the Beatitudes, when Jesus speaks there, He uses this oracular form when He goes through the Beatitudes, Blessed are those who do this and Blessed are those who do that.
Well now David is pronouncing an oracle of wheel that has direct implications for himself. I've often spoken about how The oracle of the curse or judgment, which is pronounced with the use of the term woe. is used by Isaiah In chapter six, where he pronounces the curse upon himself, woe is me. for I am an unclean man, now David is giving the contrast to the woe which is the blessedness. Blessed is he.
Whose transgression Forgiven. I can't think of anything more foundational to the Christian life than that. Because every Christian is a person whose sins. have been forgiven. And to enter into that reconciled relationship with God by which our sins are forgiven, is to enter in.
to a slate of blessedness. We are blessed not because we are righteous. But we are blessed because we are forgiven. And so David begins this psalm with that announcement: Blessed is he. whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
Now, remember when we looked at Psalm 51, I said that the two chief metaphors for redemption in the Bible. Or The blotting out of transgressions, the removing of transgressions, or the covering of one's guilt. by the righteousness of Christ. And so he said, not only are we blessed by forgiveness, But we're blessed because our sin has been hidden from God. Our sin has been covered.
And the The first covering was the clothes that God condescended to make for Adam and Eve when they were ashamed of their nakedness and were hiding and seeking to conceal themselves from the gaze of God. But then we see the covering on the mercy seat on the Day of Atonement with the blood of the sacrifice, then supremely we see the covering of our nakedness. by the righteous garments of Christ. That is the blessing of forgiveness. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity.
and in whose spirit there is no deceit. At the heart of the Gospel is this concept of imputation. Which means a legal transfer of accounts. A reckoning. Or a transfer on the one hand in the cross, in the drama of the cross.
we see our sins transferred to Christ. who is our substitute. That is, our sins are imputed To him legally, so that when God looks down from heaven at his son on the cross, he sees one who is covered. with our guilt. covered with our iniquity by way of imputation.
And then the other part. Of the Gospel is the reverse transfer, where God then imputes. His righteousness. His merit to our account.
Now, the way David is speaking of it here is negatively. He doesn't say, blessed is the man who receives the imputation of the righteousness of Christ.
Now, of course, he would believe that, and we understand that that's true. But he states it in the opposite way by saying, Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity. Because that's our standing before God. is that rather than imputing to us The real guilt that we bear, and therefore receive the punishment that we deserve. Instead, the Lord does not count us.
Our sins against us, and not only does he not count our sins against us, but he counts Christ's righteousness for us. It just doesn't get. Any better than that. And these are. The consequences of true repentance.
Then in verse three he said, When I kept silent, My bones grew old. Through my groaning all the day long For day and night your hand was heavy upon me. And my vitality was turned. into the drought. of summer.
I acknowledge my sin to you. and my iniquity I have not hidden. And I said, I will confess my transgressions to the LORD. and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Throughout church history, we have seen the great saints of the ages.
reflect and muse upon the experience that they describe as the dark night of the soul. When the soul senses the withdrawal of God. The withdrawal of his blessing from our lives, where he seems to have abandoned us, that he seems to have fled from our presence. And another thing that we notice in reading the lives of the great saints is that the older they get, the more acutely conscious they became of their own unworthiness before God. I mean, the more we progress in sanctification, the more aware we become of how much more there is left to be done before we have been completely free.
of sin. And so What we have here is David's description of what he had gone through. in his dark night of the soul, Which he uses in the expression here, not of the darkness of the evening, but of the dryness of the summer. in the midst of drought.
Now remember, this is a man. speaking from a semi-arid environment. from a desert region of the Mid East. And if you've ever been through Palestine, You will see the phenomenon of what is called the wadi, w-a-d-i. Which we call in southwestern United States dry gulches or arroyos, where you see in the midst of the desert these.
Pathways that are like creek beds, but no water is flowing in them. but they are made when the storm does come And you have flash flooding, and the runoff from the mountains and so on create these crevices in the hard. Surface of the desert, and they are the way in which the water is washed away.
However, During drought. In the desert time. The earth becomes parched and the land becomes cracked. and these riverbeds, these wadis, are dry. And this is what David is recalling here.
During that time, where I was experiencing guilt. without relief. And the hand of the Lord was heavy upon me. and I felt oppressed by my burden of guilt. My soul was dry as a potsard, I was like the drought.
In summer. And that's the language he uses, which everyone in Palestine. Was aware of that, and he says, My vitality was turned into the draught of summer earlier when I kept silent. When I was not confessing my sin before God, My bones grew old. Isn't that an interesting Metaphor.
Good. I couldn't hardly stand the weight. Of the bones in my body as they were getting older and older, and I was becoming calcified. and I was groaning all the day long for day and night your hand was heavy upon me. My vitality was turned into the drought of summer.
and I acknowledge my sin. to you. And he said, And my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord. And you forgave.
The iniquity of my sin. This is the prayer of David. Prayer of thanksgiving. an expression of gratitude. for having received, the complete forgiveness and pardon of God.
But beloved, this is the prayer of every Christian. Every Christian. who has stood at the foot of the cross, and who has confessed their sins, and who has experienced the pardon and the remission of those sins, From the hand of God Then he goes on to say, for this cause. Everyone who is godly Shall pray to you. In a time that you may be found.
Remember the phrase, Seek ye the Lord. While he Maybe five. Call ye upon him. when he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts.
For he will have mercy upon him. And abundantly. Pardon. When I was a little boy, And I had to go to church on a regular basis, not because I enjoyed it, but because my parents made me go. One of the things that I was forced to do was to join the Children's Squire.
And they had outfits that made me look like little Lord Fauntleroy. where I had the black hassock and the white surplus and then the stiff white big collar and the great big black. bow at my throat and you can imagine looking at a little larcy sprawl looking like this angel in the choir loft and we had to sing. And occasionally We would be joined by the adult Yeah. And my favorite anthem as a child, even though I didn't know anything about the things of God.
was when we would sing with the adult choir and the lead tenor, of the adult choir would sing the solo. From that anthem Seek ye the Lord. And I can still hear him seek ye the Lord, while he may be found. Call ye upon him. when he is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. And he would go on. and return unto the Lord. And return unto the Lord, for he will have mercy. And then he would say, He will have mercy.
And then they would go on through the refrain, he will have mercy. He will have mercy. and abundantly Pardon. That was the refrain that still reverberates in my mind from my childhood. He will have mercy.
And abundantly Pardon. That was the grace of God before my conversion. That I was exposed frequently to the words of that anthem, which were taken directly from Scripture, because it is the fundamental truth. of the Christian faith. that not only does he have mercy, and not only does he pardon, but his pardon is abundant.
For those who seek him. For this cause everyone who is godly She'll pray to you in a time. when you may be found, and surely in a flood of great waters They shall not come near him. For you are my hiding place, You shall preserve me from trouble, and you shall surround me with songs of deliverance. I just mentioned a few moments ago David's allusion to the drought.
in the desert and I mentioned That These great wadis were there and they were caused by the flash floods that rained twice a year in the desert. And when it would rain, The water would come pouring off the mountainsides. And you would have these flash floods.
So now David expresses the opposite metaphor from the drought, and that is the metaphor of the flood. If you've ever been the Masada, And you see how the Jewish people lived up on top of that mountain with its sheer cliffs. where they were besieged by the Romans and their ramparts and so on. And how they were able to survive up there in the top of that mountain because they had cut these huge cisterns out of the rock. To store their water supply at the top and at the base of Masada, down by the floor of the desert.
They also had these huge cisterns cut out of the rock, And connected to these wadis so that when the days of the flooding came and the water would be rushing through them, then that water supply would be captured in these massive, cavernous, hollowed-out rocks. And then, when it was captured at the base of the mountain, The workers would go down there one at a time with buckets, and they would hoist those buckets up to the top. and keep them into the supply in the cisterns up there. But again, the whole defense structure of Masada was tied to these annual phenomena of drought. and flood.
And so David is saying That after a person experiences the forgiveness of God, They have now come. to a safe. hiding place. a safe place where in the midst of the flood of the great waters, No harm. will befall them.
You shall preserve me from trouble. and you shall surround me, he says. With songs of deliverance. I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will guide you with my eye.
And of course he's not instructing God, but God is instructing him. Do not be like the horse. or like the mule, which have no understanding, which must be harnessed with bit and bridle, Else they will not come near you. God is now speaking to David and to all who are in that position. Don't be like a mule.
Don't be like a horse that requires a bit in their teeth. attached to a bridle, So that in order to get your attention, I have to yank on these reins and pull you around to myself. Don't be like that. And yet that is how we are. That is how we tend to be, even as Christians, that when we fall into sin, God has to jerk the reins to get our attention because we are as stubborn as the proverbial mule.
And we need to be reined in. By the strong right hand of God. And God is saying, don't be like that. But rather we should be People who have the understanding to come near to the Lord. when we need his forgiveness.
And then David. finishes this song by saying many sorrows. Shall be to the wicked. But he who trusts in the Lord, mercy, shall surround him. Boy, I love that image It's not that we will just be touched.
Lightly or tapped on the shoulder by mercy. But the mercy of God will be. will surround us. Be all around us. will be engulfed by the mercy of God.
That's the Christian light. That's what is true for everyone who places their trust in the Lord. Be glad in the Lord. And rejoice, you righteous, and shout for joy All you upright, in heart.
Now here is a man. Who shouted before? who shouted in anger. When Nathan told him the parable, Of the wealthy man. who stole the ewe lamb from the poor man.
And David shouted in anger against this person who would perpetrate such a crime in his kingdom. And then he shouted with groanings of pain. When Nathan revealed his sin to him, saying, Thou art the man. And David was groaning. and crying out in his misery In Psalm 51.
Pleading with God for his mercy. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and according to the multitude of your tender mercies. Blot out my transgressions. And that's where we are when we feel the weight. of the pain of repentance.
We cry out. Elsewhere David speaks of his pillow. being soaked and saturated with his tears. from crying before the Lord day and night. But once he receives The forgiveness of God.
Once he experiences the pardon of God, and enters into the blessedness Of The forgiven. Then his voice shouts. with joy. Because the bones which the Lord had broken are once again rejoicing. and God indeed the God of his salvation.
restores to David The joy. of his salvation. And that joy is what we experience as Christians. If you're not a Christian, You don't know the joy of forgiveness. R.
C. Sproul explains more in his short booklet, What is the Gospel? And you can download a free copy. At renewingyourmind.org slash gospel. This is Renewing Your Mind, and Dr.
Sproll's message today was a great encouragement to remind us where true joy is found. Not in things, but in the world. but in the One who can cleanse us from our sin. I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and I'm glad you're joining us today.
And if you'd like to go to the beginning of this series on David, repentance, and forgiveness, We'll send you the series on DVD and unlock the messages and study guide for you in the free Ligonier app. When you make a donation today in support of proclaiming this good news around the world through the daily release of Renewing Your Mind and all of the global gospel efforts of Lignier Ministries, you can give your gift and request today's resource offer at renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast show notes. And if you live outside of the US and Canada, we have a digital edition of today's offer at renewingyourmind.org slash global. But don't delay as this offer ends tonight at midnight. I've read the Bible for decades.
I've read it cover to cover. But if you asked me to tell you about the maid of Naaman's wife, I'd need a refresher. What about Moses' father-in-law Jethro? Beginning Monday, you'll hear a brand new series from Derek Thomas on some of the lesser-known characters of the Bible.
So be sure to join us next week here on Renewing Your Mind.
