“I Will Instruct You” (Part 1 of 3)

Throughout our lives there are lessons to be learned. Your wisdom—the wisdom that comes down from heaven that is, first of all, pure and peaceful and open to reason. Grant us minds that will think clearly, hearts that are opened by the touch of your gracious hand, and lives that are ready to put into practice that which you instruct us in. We're desperately in need of your help, and we come humbly to seek it. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Well, I think this is the fifth study now in Psalm 32. We planned, at least when I started out, I was going to do a sermon on Psalm 32, and it's not a testimony to my ability, certainly, that it's taken us now five studies and we won't finish yet.

But I hope it's proved at least helpful for those of you who have been following the course along. We have noted that David is announcing the distinction, and the very significant and clear distinction, between the heaviness that he experienced when he played the part of the cover-up artist, when he sought to hide from himself and from God, when he did everything wrong and tried to run away, and recognized that, frankly, he was just a complete mess. And the heaviness of God's hand upon him was in direct contrast to the happiness that he then declares as being discovered in knowing the living God as a result of God's wonderful forgiveness of our sins. And there is a sense in which we could look at Psalm 32 simply in terms of the contrast between that heaviness and happiness.

I also reflected upon it and wrote down a number of words that seemed to trace a line through it. The story so far is of David's transgression. In fact, he mentions that in verse 1. Happy is the one whose transgressions are forgiven. And the transgression that is unremoved reveals itself in depression, in verses 3 and 4, my bones wasted away. And then the depression is alleviated by confession. I confess my sins to you. I acknowledge my sins. And in that confession there is liberation, freedom, and as he sees all that is his in God, he recognizes that it is God who is the source of his protection. And verse 7, you are my hiding place.

You will protect me from trouble. And then between verse 7 and verse 8, there is a voice change, and God speaks in verse 8, and we move into the realm of instruction. Instruction. I think sometimes those words are helpful.

If they're not, you can just forget all about them. But it seems to me that there is some form of progression through the psalm—transgression, depression, confession, liberation, protection—and now the instruction that he requires. Verses 8 and 9 are essentially the Lord's reply to David's words.

Let's just read them again. I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you and watch over you. Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding, but must be controlled by bit and bridle, or they will not come to you. David is here making this wonderful discovery, and it is truly a wonderful discovery, that God is not only able to deal with his past, but God is also willing to direct his future. It bears saying again, doesn't it?

He is reminded that God deals with his past and directs his future. If you pay attention to people's conversation, as I'm sure you do, you will have noticed, as I have noted, that not only in the realm of athletics and particularly professional golf, but also in just about every aspect of life, it is difficult to go through a week without somebody telling you that they are just living in the moment. I am just in the moment.

Or I was in real time. And that kind of phraseology has become part of our common everyday interchange. It's not surprising, because the quest to live in the moment is mitigated by the past and the future, both in good ways and in bad ways.

Good ways? There is so much in our past that is wonderful and happy and memorable. Photographs that are etched into our memory that we're able to recall and enjoy, that when we daydream, we go into the past and bring up material which invades the present. In the same way, we're able to look forward to the future, hoping for things—the achievement of success, the completion of programs, the meeting of friends, the enjoyment of Thanksgiving, the arrival of Christmas. And as we look into the future, so it has an impact on the present. But at a far more disturbing level, I think most people would be prepared to acknowledge that their inability to deal with the sixty seconds they are now experiencing is, more often than not, tied to the fact that when they go backwards, it is to recrimination and to regret and to disappointment and to failure. And indeed, one of the questions of their lives is, is there any way, is there any one, who can legitimately deal with my past? And in looking forward, is there any one who can help me with my fears—fears about my health and about my future and about my family and about my retirement and about my eternal destiny ultimately?

So if you've had any of those thoughts, I think you're simply representative of what is generally the case. And therefore, I hope you will be helped, at least in that respect, by what we find before us this morning. David introduced to the fact that God not only deals with his past but directs his future. He doesn't simply take him up out of a miry pit, out of the clay, as in Psalm 40, and set his feet upon a rock, but he establishes his going. At least, that's the King James version. That's how it finishes. Psalm 40 verse 2, he set my feet on a rock and established my going.

The whole notion of forward momentum, of the propulsion that takes us on. Now, it's quite common for someone who has recently accepted God's offer of forgiveness, someone who has recently come to understand who Jesus is and what he's done and has become a believer, has been converted, has become a follower of Jesus, for them to ask the question, What happens next? Is there any kind of course of instruction? And the answer, of course, is yes. And wonderfully, as this eighth verse makes clear, not only is there a course of instruction which is very comprehensive, but it is God himself who promises to do the teaching. And this God who promises to do the teaching has provided for us the course notes. And all that we have for the course is provided for us in the Bible that he has given to us. And this God, this instructor, is the one who takes a very personal interest in the welfare of his children.

I will counsel you and watch over you. One of the great hullabaloos in contemporary education at the postgraduate level—at least at the master's level, as some of you will have found to your great shame and disappointment—is that you decided to sign up for postgraduate study, and you thought that this would take you to a whole new level of intellectual advance, only to get in the class and discover that some of the people who were teaching you were actually just as dimwitted as yourself, and were only in the class about two weeks ahead of you. And the professor had gone off to write a book somewhere, and he had entrusted it to some well-meaning soul who was going to teach this particular course.

And you said, I wish I'd never spent the money. I thought I was going to be instructed by the main person. And I think that's a legitimate expectation.

And I think, incidentally and in passing, you ought to pay careful attention to every institution that fails to provide it. But the promise here is not that God passes it off to some lackey, not that he gives it away to some inferior being. No, he says, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go, I will counsel you, and I will watch over you. You say, well, he doesn't do that directly, does he? He does it through the Bible, he does it through pastors and teachers and so on. He uses means.

Of course he does. But here's the issue. I or any other individual may do my best to exegete this passage. I may study it, learn it, hopefully get it as right as I can, and convey it to you.

You may listen to that, and at a cerebral level you may process the information. But unless God is your teacher, in that and through that, then everything that happens happens at a completely superficial level. It is when you are listening to the Bible taught by a mere individual that a divine dialogue takes place with your soul, whereby you recognize at a deep-seated level that something is taking place in this interaction that cannot now purely be explained in terms of the verbiage of the one addressing us, but that at the very core of our being there is an instruction taking place. And we feel as though we are instructed by the very one who wrote the book into whose pages we are looking. That is what God pledges to his servant to do, and he does to us who also serve him. Spurgeon gets it wonderfully when he says, He who made you his child will put you to school and teach you until you shall know the Lord Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life. It's impossible to travel on any day without meeting somebody who's on a course.

Have you noticed that? You sit down on the plane. So, what are you doing? I'm on a course. You go in the coffee shop.

What's that big book? I'm on a course. Everyone's on a course.

Don't feel left out. If you are a follower of Jesus, you are on a course. And here it is. Not a golf course. An instruction course. Look at the verbs.

Instruct, teach, counsel, watch over. Now, let's look at this under four headings or four words concerning this instruction. Let's notice, first of all, that it is vital. Secondly, that it is practical. Thirdly, that it is personal. And fourthly, that it is rational. We'll never get to four.

We may get to three. But why worry? First of all, this instruction is vital. It is vital instruction. And we can't say that about all instruction, can we? Not every piece of information that comes our way is vital.

Maybe extraneous. Do you know this? Have you learned that?

Do you know this or the next thing? And someone says, Well, no, I didn't, but it doesn't really make a difference to me getting up in the morning or going through my life. But when we come to the instruction of verse 8—indeed, the indication of God's instruction to us in his Word—it is vital. And it is vital for three particular classes of person. Number one, it is vital for the beginner.

For the beginner. We all have to begin somewhere. And at the outset of any journey, we usually know very little. That's one of the difficult things and the humbling things about becoming a Christian when you're mature. You have actually established yourself in society.

You have perhaps done well, and you are known for your intellectual prowess or for your athletic ability or whatever else it might be. And now you have come to an understanding of the need for the forgiveness of your sins, and you've discovered the joy of this forgiveness, and you've been ushered into a whole new world that you never knew before. And there is a language that you have never learned, and you find yourself surrounded by individuals who seem to know so much more than you. Well, don't be alarmed by that.

Everybody experiences that. We've become infants—spiritual infants. We are infants in the matters of divinity—an old word from an earlier era. But we just know so very little about God, and God's ways and dealings.

And consequently, we know so very little about ourselves. Before we ever trusted in Jesus, we viewed ourselves in a certain way. We viewed other people in a different way. And we viewed Jesus in a different way.

But all of that has changed. In fact, you might want to just have that reinforced for you by turning for a moment to 2 Corinthians chapter 5. And in 2 Corinthians 5, we have what is a classic verse. If anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation, the old is gone, the new has come. Now, if we were asked to explain how the evidence of transformation is revealed, we might mention all kinds of things. Interestingly, in the context in which verse 17 falls in 2 Corinthians 5, Paul is pointing out that the big change in the person who has been changed is in, essentially, the way they view things—the way they view things. And we understand this by recognizing his identification of what now is, so that, antithetically, we know what was not.

Let me just show you. Those who are not new creations, verse 12, take pride in what is seen. Okay?

They're all about externals, they're all about the outside. Secondly, in verse 15, they live for themselves. Thirdly, in verse 16, they regard Jesus from a worldly point of view.

Okay? Before a person comes to trust in Jesus, they take pride in what is seen, they live for themselves, and they regard Jesus from a worldly point of view. But when a person is in Christ and becomes a new creation, these three things are altered.

And the believer has an altogether different view of Jesus, of other people, and of himself or herself. That's one of the ways we identify the fact that we've actually become Christians. Because we look at people and we say, I wonder if she's a Christian. We never thought that before.

It was never a question. We didn't know anything about being a Christian. Or we thought everyone was a Christian. Or we find ourselves listening to the television, and somebody says something about Jesus and besmirches the name of Jesus, and we find ourselves saying, That pains me to hear Jesus spoken about like that. That's an indication of the change.

Before, it was commonplace. What's different? We have been changed. And the change on the inside reveals itself on the outside. Now, unless we're able to go to the Bible, to the instruction manual, then we're never going to know that kind of thing. By nature, we viewed ourselves in one way, and by grace, we see ourselves completely differently. And when we begin the Christian journey, we're so unaware of who God is, we're really unaware of ourselves and what we're like, our vulnerability to temptation and to dangers.

We're just, frankly, a bunch of babies. And we need to be suckled by the milk of God's Word, as Peter says when he writes to his followers. The instruction, then, is vital, first of all, for the beginner. Secondly, it is vital for the confused.

For the confused. You've probably heard somebody remark, Well, you really shouldn't pay much attention to me. I only know enough to be dangerous.

Which, if you have an electrician working in your house, you probably don't want to go out and leave him alone, if that's his introduction to you. Actually, that phrase reminds me of our son, on one occasion, when he had cut his hand open with a bottle, and he went for stitches somewhere here in the Shugrin Valley, and they had him lying on the bed, and he had to lay his hand flat on a little tray as the doctor came to him. As a young-looking doctor, our son looked up as he came towards him, and he said to the doctor, Do you ever mess one of these up?

And quick as a flash, the doctor said, I never did one of these before. Well, we don't want that kind of thing when it comes to our discovery of the details of the Christian faith. The Bible acknowledges that we are foolish people, we are wayward. That's why verse 9, to which we'll never come this morning, is right there. Do not be like a horse or mule.

It's a very straightforward statement, isn't it? I think many of us would be tempted to take verse 8 and annex it. I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go, I will counsel you and watch over you. I'm sure somebody can put a lovely melody line to that.

You know, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. It's a nice, cozy thought, isn't it? Well, who's gonna write the tune for, Do not be like the horse or the mule, which you have no understand…? It's not a nice way to treat people, is it?

They say, Hey, excuse me, listen up, class! Cut the horsey stuff, cut the mule stuff, would you? Listen! That's what he's saying. Don't be like a horse or a mule. What are horses and mules like? We'll talk about that later.

I'm still researching it. But the fact is, they're not particularly rational. That's why you have to nudge them and squeeze them and bang them and hook them and do all whip them and do all those things. And we are by nature confused people. The Galatians were confused. That's why Paul writes to them and says, Are you foolish Galatians?

Are you getting confused all over again? Paul writes to Timothy, and he tells him, You need to understand that there will be people in your congregation who are swayed by all kinds of evil desires. They will be always learning and never able to acknowledge the truth.

Do you get that? Always learning, never able to acknowledge the truth. That's one of the saddest aspects of pastoral ministry, incidentally.

To have people under your tutelage and your care who by a certain point on the road ought to be teachers, but they're not, and they constantly, like children, drift from one idea to another. And their great need is the instruction which God provides. You're listening to Truth for Life and a message from Alistair Begg titled I Will Instruct You. This is part of a series based on Psalm 32 called The Missing Peace. If you listen regularly to Truth for Life, you have come to trust that what you will hear each day is clear, relevant Bible teaching.

That's because we believe that the scripture is the very word of God, that its truth is unchanging, and it's without error. It's our passion to proclaim it as far and as wide as possible. But we could not do that without the generous support of an important group of people we refer to as truth partners. Truth partners are people just like you who commit to praying regularly and to monthly giving to support this program. If you've been encouraged and strengthened by what you hear on Truth for Life, would you join the team that makes all of this possible by becoming a truth partner? You can choose the amount of your monthly gift, and your regular ongoing support of Truth for Life will help make a difference in someone's life, someone you may never meet but who will be changed by God through his word. You can sign up online at truthforlife.org slash truth partner, and when you do, be sure to request today's recommended book. It's a devotional that will point you to Jesus in the days that are leading up to Easter. I'll remind you that Lent begins on February 17th. The book is titled An Ocean of Grace, and it contains six weeks of daily readings written by a collection of historical figures.

Each of these readings are on the topic of Jesus' death and resurrection and are perfect for setting your thoughts on the meaning of the cross as we prepare our hearts for the celebration of the resurrection. Request your copy of the book when you sign up to become a truth partner or when you give a one-time donation to support the ministry of Truth for Life. Visit us at truthforlife.org slash truth partner or click the image you see on the mobile app, or you can give us a call. Our number is 888-588-7884. And if you'd prefer to mail your donation along with your request for the book, write to Truth for Life, Post Office Box 398000, Cleveland, Ohio 44139. Ask for the book An Ocean of Grace. I'm Bob Lapine. Hope you can join us tomorrow as Alistair concludes his message called I Will Instruct You by explaining the instruction God gives to help guide our future. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.