Like an Owl among the Ruins

Have you ever done something wrong and then tried to cover it up? In the book of Psalms, King David writes about his attempt to keep his sins hidden and how that made him feel isolated and vulnerable. But today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg explains how God intervened in David's life to set his guilty conscience free.

We're looking at the second of six penitential psalms, and for those of you who are concerned about that, they are Psalm 6, Psalm 32, Psalm 38, Psalm 51, Psalm 102, and Psalm 130, just in case you wanted to go looking for them. Well, having made this general statement concerning happiness, which he tells us is the product of forgiveness, David now goes in verse 3 and 4 to acknowledge the heaviness which he has experienced when, instead of confessing his sin to God, he is hidden in the shadows and he has absolutely refused to face the issue. He tells us at the end of verse 2 that the happiness that attaches to a man or a woman is a happiness which attaches to the individual in whose spirit is no deceit. Deceitfulness or dishonesty and happiness do not sleep in the same bed. Indeed, we ought not to deceive ourselves about the consequences of deceiving ourselves. And he gives us a very clear indication that there is an obvious link between remorse and a tortured conscience and the physical impact that comes by way of that remorse and that tortured conscience.

Those of you who work in social agencies at all, those of you who work within the realm of psychology and psychiatry, those of you who work with people who are on the margins and the fringes of society as a result of their decisions, will be confronted again and again with some correlation between what is going on in a person's heart and mind and what is being displayed in that person's body. And here in the Bible, we have a very clear indication of that fact. And these two verses, when I kept silent, he says, when I didn't confess my sin, when I hid the true state of affairs, then people could identify it in my body. They wouldn't walk around and go, Oh, there's somebody who's hiding his sin. They would say, Isn't it strange how much weight David has lost? Isn't it fascinating to see the way he groans and twitches? And those who were in his immediate company, seeing him in the watches of the night, would not be aware of the predicament that was going on inside of him spiritually, but they could not avoid the indications of what was happening to him physically. And the cause and the effect are stated plainly. David's condition was a punishment.

The Bible makes it clear that there is a natural outcome to lust and to excess. We don't like to mention this. We don't like to talk about it.

It's politically incorrect. It gets people's fur up on the back of their head. The fur flies, and they become resentful. But in actual fact, it is a liberating and wonderful truth. You have it in Romans chapter 1.

Again, here's a statement that no one really likes to trot out, do they? That God gave men over to the sinful desires of their hearts. What does he say in verse 24? He gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity. Why is there rampant sexual impurity in America? Because of the judgment of God.

God gave them over to it. Said, You don't believe in me? You don't love me? You don't worship the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ? You want to live without me?

Let me show you how it works. Verse 25, they exchanged the truth of God for a lie. Deceit, remember? You can't be happy when you're a liar. And they worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator, who is always praised.

26, here comes the because. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men and received notice and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. Now, you don't have to be beyond sixth grade to understand what's being said there— that there is a direct cause and effect in terms of lust and excess and a disregard for the commands of God. Paul does not elucidate what this penalty was, but all he tells us is that the penalty was received in themselves. In themselves. So there was some physical implication to their deceitful turning from the clear instruction of God.

Quite devastating, isn't it? How would you like to be up here saying this? When I kept silent, my bones wasted, through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me, and my strength was sapped, as in the heat of summer. Fever, frailty, weight loss, sleeplessness, rejection, melancholy, anxiety, despair. All may be accompanying symptoms of the individual who hides their sin from God. Now, don't misunderstand me or the Bible.

Every time we find those symptoms, we cannot trace them to hidden sin. And indeed, it is not our responsibility to trace anything in anybody else's life to hidden sin. We have enough of a journey dealing with our own lives and our own preoccupations and our own predicaments. So don't let's go there. But don't let's, in seeking to stand back from that, say less than what the Bible is saying. For remember, this is David's biography.

This is autobiography. He says, there is a phenomenal happiness that attaches to forgiveness when transgressions are covered, when sins are removed, when debt is canceled. He says, I know that to be true.

What I also know to be true is this—that when I did not walk the path of repentance, when I did not confess my sin to God, when I worked off a double standard, this is exactly what happened to me. What do you think he has in mind? Of course you know what he has in mind. What is he dealing with? Presumably, his sin with Bathsheba. 2 Samuel chapter 11.

Remember the cliff notes? David, when he should have been doing other things, saw a lady bathing on the roof. He saw her bathing, he lusted after her, he sent for her, he took him to himself. He then arranged for her husband to be suitably killed in one of the battles. And verse 26 of 2 Samuel 11 reads, When Uriah's wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. People came back from the battle, presumably, and gave her a flag, all folded up. Said, We're sorry to hear, Mrs. Uriah, that your husband died in the battle. Dreadful skirmish it was, and down he went.

But we want to thank you on behalf of our nation that your husband served his country so well. And after she'd spent the customary time in mourning, David sent for her and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. Now, if you think about it, there's about a year between his sin with Bathsheba and the beginning of chapter 12. There's at least nine months. We know that.

For she had time to conceive and bear a child. So for twelve months, approximately, David has been doing what he thinks is a masterful cover-up. For all this time, he's been saying to himself, I've got this aced. No one knows. No one sees.

I'm in control. The deceitfulness of sin always does that to us. But when he's honest with himself, he knows that public perception and private reality are two separate realms entirely. And his groaning on his bed at night, and the sapping of his strength in the day, and the disintegration of his psyche in the process of the living of life is eating away at him like a cancer. And when you read chapter 11, it's amazing that there's no indication of what God is doing or what God is not doing. There's no comment anywhere in chapter 11 about where God is. Why didn't God prevent this? What does God feel about this?

What is happening in relationship to these things? The only thing we have is the final sentence of the chapter, But the thing David had done displeased the LORD. Displeased the LORD.

And what action did he take? Turn the page. The LORD sent Nathan to David. If you go back for your homework and read chapter 11, and underline in your text how many times the verb to send comes, you'll find that it's all over the place.

Chapter 11, everybody's sending everybody everywhere. David is sending for Bathsheba to come to the house. David is sending Uriah out into the battlefield. David is sending a message to Joab. Joab is sending a message back to someone else. There's all this kind of sending going on, as if somehow or another mere mortals are in charge of it all. And then you turn the page into chapter 12, and you read the simple sentence, The LORD sent Nathan to David.

A whole year of deceit and silence. And in actual fact, those six words are words of amazing grace. The LORD sent Nathan to David. How good of God to do that! How good of God to do that!

That is grace, is it not? He doesn't cast his servant off. He sends the prophet to him, and the prophet doesn't show up at his door and beat on him and accuse him. He simply tells him a story of an individual and the story of this little lamb, tender, drawing out the sympathy of the king, the rage of the king over the act of the individual in doing what he did, and then the punchline coming so quickly when Nathan says to David, verse 7 of chapter 12, You are the man.

You are the man. The grace of God is found in this, that Yahweh will not allow his servant David to settle down comfortably in his sin. And he won't let you do it, and he won't let me do it either. As surely as he sent the prophet Nathan physically to the front door of David's house, he sends his word to the front door of each of our houses. And the reason that he does so, as uncomfortable as it may be, as arresting and as difficult to face as it may be, is because of his amazing grace, granting us something even though we deserve nothing.

And the something he gives us, he gives us for nothing. You see, to all intents and purposes, David had got away from it. Any observer would have said, He's managed it. He's succeeded in his unfaithfulness. He fancied the woman, he took the woman, he married the woman, he's had a child by the woman, he managed to get the husband killed. What more could he possibly do? I guess that's what happens to people in authority, the folks at the marketplace would have said.

It's amazing what you can do if you're a king these days. But they didn't see his heart. They didn't know what's going on. They didn't know that he felt like he was an owl in the ruins of a castle. They didn't know that his strength was sapping away. They didn't know that he couldn't sleep at night. They didn't know that he'd lost his appetite.

They knew nothing of that. Only God and David knew. And let me say to you, if you or I are fiddling around with sin in our lives, it matters not how well we can conceal that from the watching world—for the watching world is irrelevant to us, ultimately—but God knows our hearts, and so do we. And if we continue to conceal sin, to stand back from confession, to remain impenitent in our attitudes, then we pray God that he will come and arrest us and sort us out.

And so we have to finish on an encouraging note. Notice in verse 5 he says, When I refused to confess my sin—verse 3—this was my predicament. I was weak, I was miserable, I groaned a lot.

Day and night your hand of discipline was on me, my strength evaporated. But the story doesn't end there, because, he says, then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I didn't cover up my iniquity. The story doesn't end with despair but with deliverance. It doesn't end with guilt but with grace. Says Kidner, the relief of climbing down and the grace which meets it altogether outweighs the cost.

What a great phrase! You know, that's what people say. Why don't you get off your high horse? Why don't you face facts?

Why don't you tell the truth? Why don't you climb down? It's so hard to climb down. If I climb down, then people will find out. If I climb down, I'm not sure what's down there. I like it up here, where I'm hiding.

Climb down. The cost is far outweighed by the benefits of forgiveness. We know this even in human estrangements, don't we? If you're not speaking to your wife or to your husband.

If you're disaffected with a loved one in your home. The longer you go concealing the necessity of sorry, the longer I go without saying, Please forgive me, the greater the burden becomes and the deeper the stain remains. You see, I say to you again, this is between you and God. This is between God and me.

Oh, yes, it affects each other. But if God is speaking to you tonight, and you think you're a cover-up expert, you might want to consider the description of an owl among the ruins. And you might want to be really, really careful about hearing God's Word from Psalm 32.

Because as surely as in his mercy he sent Nathan to David, so in his mercy he sends his Word to you and to me. I came back this week to a ton of mail. A lot of it came via the radio. I began to read one letter, amongst many. And the reason I began to read it was because it was handwritten. And I always read the handwritten ones first.

Even though they're harder, I just like them better. I can't read all of this letter, because I may give away the identity of the individual, even though he's far from here. I just wanted to drop you a note and let you know how much your radio ministry has meant to me. He tells of being a founding member of a well-known church in a southern state. I raised a Christian family. I have three wonderful Christian children. I've supported numerous Christian ministries. I've served my country in Korea.

I've kept the laws of this country, except for a couple of traffic tickets. I wondered where he was going with this. I thought, goodness gracious, you know what, you wanted just to tell me what a fine fellow you are? He says, I will not enumerate the other good things I've done, since that is not the point. I'm in jail for child molestation.

And he is on to tell how, as soon as the truth came out, his congregation abandoned him entirely, including the entire pastoral team. I can honestly say that because of Truth for Life, I have the primary reason that I turned to God instead of away from him in my troubles. The radio program has helped me more than anyone else in getting me to the point where I have perfect peace about the possibility of spending the rest of my life in prison. It has taken a long time for my head knowledge to infiltrate my heart. Thanks for providing the part you played.

I am now the closest to God that I have ever been." And apparently, the DA is asking for a sentence that would go as far as 41 years. He's a sixty-eight-year-old man. But you see, to all intents and purposes on the outside, he's Mr. Clean. Mr.

I Served in Korea. Mr. Founding Elder of the Church. Don't judge by what's going on on the outside.

Either yourself or anybody else. David was a king. David had a chariot. David had people under his thumb.

And David was like an owl in a ruin. Until he acknowledged his sin. Our lives can move from despair to deliverance when we confess our sins to God. That's easier said than done, but it's a lesson all Christians will be helped to learn.

You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg and please keep listening. Alistair will be back in just a minute to close with prayer. As we heard in today's message, God didn't cast David aside for his failure, even after he tried to cover it up. Instead, God extended a loving hand of mercy toward David. He forgave him for his wrongdoing and he relieved him of his guilt. It's a comforting picture, particularly when we think about our own sins. Now, this story might raise the question, just how far will God's grace and mercy extend? Does God ever run out of patience?

Well, the answer to that question is found in a book we've selected that complements the study we've been hearing from Alistair. The book is called Gentle and lowly, the heart of Christ for sinners and sufferers. Contrary to what we may believe, we can't out-sin Jesus' forgiveness.

He is always ready for us to turn back to him. This is the message of the gospel, that Jesus came to save sinners. And this good news is what we love to share with people through Truth for Life. It's our partnership with listeners like you that brings this daily program to a worldwide audience. So when you give today, we want to say thank you by inviting you to request your own copy of the book, Gentle and lowly. You can make a donation and request your copy of the book through our mobile app or go to truthforlife.org slash donate. You can also give by calling us at 888-588-7884. If you'd prefer to mail your donation along with your request for the book, write to us at Truth for Life, P.O.

Box 398000, Cleveland, Ohio 44139. And thank you for partnering with us. Now here's Alistair to close in prayer. God our Father, it is in our very nature to hide from you and to cover up. We saw Adam and Eve do it in the garden. They ran away and hid because they were naked, they were ashamed of what they'd done, and we too are ashamed of the things we've done. Help us not to cloak our sin.

Help us to confess it to you. Thank you for the promise of your Word that when we confess our sin, that you're faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Thank you that the story of David in this psalm does not end with him wasting away, but it ends with him hiding in you—not hiding from you, but hiding in you—and calling out to the passers-by, Rejoice in the Lord, all you who are upright in heart. Thank you that it is on account of your faithfulness that you pursue us, and you won't let us remain comfortable in our disobedience and in our rebellion. Not because you take delight in pouring out your wrath or in chiding your servants, but because you have committed yourself to us, and you promise to bring to completion the good work that you've already begun.

What an amazingly faithful love is yours. And it is in this that we seek to take our rest. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for joining us. Today we learned what happened when King David tried to hide his sins from God and from others. Tomorrow, Alistair digs deeper into his study of Psalm 32 to show us the importance of making God our hiding place. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.