Psalm 32. A Mascal of David. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away, through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me, my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah, I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah. Therefore, let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found. Surely in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him. You are a hiding place for me. You preserve me from trouble. You surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah. I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with a bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you. Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart. Let's pray. Lord, we ask you now for wisdom, for understanding, for alertness, But Lord, most of all, we ask for soft hearts, receptive hearts, Lord, hearts that are seeking you and yearn to hear of you. Lord, please move in us by the power of your spirit. Conform us, Lord, we ask once again. Conform us to the image of your son, Christ Jesus. We ask this, Lord, both for our joy and for your unending glory. Amen. Well, please be seated. I'm gonna handle this psalm by first giving you the exposition, and then bringing that together by examining the doctrine, and lastly, by applying the truths therein. So exposition, doctrine, and application. Well, what we're gonna see, first of all, in our exposition, is that David here is arguing from his own experience the joys of a clean conscience and also the terrors of a defiled conscience. This we see is one of David's psalms. And of course, David was a man who knew quite the highs and lows, spiritually speaking. He was a man who was well acquainted with heights and depths in his spiritual experience. And so what we're going to see here in this 32nd Psalm is that David is, he is arguing from his own experience And so let me give you a quick outline then of this Psalm. Well, in verses one and two, what we have is David's thesis. This is what he is asserting. This is the main argument, his big idea. And everything that follows in verses three all the way through 11 is going to support this thesis that we find in the first two verses. And then what we have is in verses three, four, and five, David leaning heavily on his own experience and he's relaying and recounting, sharing with us his experience. In verses three and four, David is giving us an eye into what an afflicted conscience looks like and the sadness that comes with that. And then in verse five, David shares with us what a liberated conscience looks like. from, again, his own experience. In verse six, we have David starting to apply already what he has shared with us thus far. So we have a, we're commended to seek the liberated conscience. Then in verse seven, we have a confession where David is transitioning into worship. And then verses eight and nine, David is sharing some heartfelt counsel. He is pulling aside his son and speaking to his son these words of wisdom. And I'm speaking figuratively. There's no son mentioned, but it's as if he's with a very fatherly caring concern, teaching his son. And then in verse 10, we have the fruits. We see the manifestation, sort of the logical end result in consequence of both the afflicted conscience, but also the liberated, free, happy conscience. So we see a contrast between the two men. And then lastly, we have a call to worship, a call to gratitude in thanksgiving. And so if we examine then more carefully, David's thesis here in verses one and two, what we have is very characteristic Hebrew poetry. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven. And then by way of progression, whose sin is covered. More parallelism, blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit. So all of these are descriptions of the blessed man. Now the Hebrew here for blessed is also the idea is that of a happy man. That's why if I entitled the sermon, The happy man, because what we have is chiefly the portrait of one who is supremely happy. This is the happiest man, not just even a happy man, but the happiest man. Happy is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Happy, joyful, is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit There is no deceit. And so again, what we have is David arguing from his own experience. So he's supporting the thesis of verses one and two by then in verses three through five, pouring out his heart and saying, hey, I've walked this. I know, I've had maybe not a perfectly analogous experience, but when I was in middle school, my uncle pulled me aside and he said, Paul, I wanna share something with you. He said, I have, take it from me, I have done every drug that you can possibly conceive of. And he said, Paul, take it from me. He said, I have been, I've abused all of these drugs, I've abused my body, but I can tell you from my own experience, he said, Paul, one day sober is more beautiful than a million days high. And that's exactly what David is doing here. He's taking the opportunity and he's pouring himself out. And we are the beneficiaries of this. David relays, when I kept silent, my bones wasted away. You can tell David wants us to escape the same lot, the same affliction. Through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. But then, this beautiful turn, David says, I acknowledge my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity. And David, of course, has many junctures in his life that he might have been speaking about. We know of a handful, at least, but... But he acknowledges his sin to the Lord. He does not cover his iniquity. Of course, that implies that before he was at least attempting to cover his iniquity. And he resolved, he says, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord. And then what happens? The Lord forgave the iniquity of his sin. And so, again, the exposition, the thing that I want us to take away is that what David is doing is he is resting his thesis on his own experience. And so that brings us then to the doctrine. And what the doctrine is, what David is trying to get us to is this, that a clean conscience is the treasure which makes the man supremely happy. A clean conscience is the treasure which makes the man supremely happy. Well, so let's ask the question or let's see the Psalm helping us to understand that we actually all start in the same place. Before we go any further, you might ask, well, who exactly is David speaking to? Or who is this lesson for? Is this for the unbeliever? Or is it for the believer? Is it for the rich or the poor? Well, it's for everyone. David's thesis here is not, this is a lesson from which the Christian doesn't get to move on. We don't graduate from having to keep this truth near and dear to us. So it's for anybody who finds themselves burdened by sin. And so we all start out in that position. We, every one of us, the believer and unbeliever alike, when we wake up in the morning, we face a thrice holy God already covered in sin. This is a sin which verse one describes as, as, is by implication uncovered, right? So blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Well, what does that imply? That we start out and our sin is, it's uncovered. It's bare before the Lord. Objectively, we may attempt to put something over it. We may try and paper over it, we may try and smile or lie or cheat our way through it, but our sin is actually uncovered. We also start out with a spirit of deceit. And again, this is by way of contrast, but we see this in verse two. The blessed man, the happy man, is the one in whose spirit there is no deceit. But by implication, The not blessed man, the unhappy man, the one who's afflicted as David was in verses three and four, his spirit is full of deceit. In his soul, he's lying. He's lying to himself, he's lying to others, and he's lying to God. And so every one of us starts fundamentally with a spirit of deceit. And you can see this in verse five, this is David talking about how he is turning at this point in verse five, but what is he turning from? Well, he says, I did not cover my iniquity. So what was David doing before? He was attempting to cover from his iniquity. Think back to the garden. What is it that Adam and Eve are doing? They attempt to hide from God, to cover themselves, and God calls them on it. He asks them, Why are you, where are you, what are you trying to do? But his, Adam and Eve are hiding. And this is, again, this is where we start attempting to cover up our own iniquity. And yes, if we remain here, we are most unhappy. And we are in this afflicted state where we find David in verses three and four. But this is where God calls us to. He calls us to a place where instead of us attempting to cover ourselves, really just shield ourselves from God's all-seeing eye, from the notice of our neighbors, from this place where we're hiding, He calls us to a place in which He covers us. And again, back to the garden, what does God do for Adam and Eve? He provides a covering. This is foreshadowing the very thing that God wants to do with us and for us. Verse one, blessed is the one whose sin is covered. Right? Something is given by God to this happy man and this thing makes him happy because his sin is covered. Iniquity is not counted or reckoned against the sinner. So this again, this is the place in which God calls us to. This is starting to sound really good. He's calling us to a place where our iniquity is not counted against us. Brothers, sisters, friends, this is good news. This is such a glorious offer that God is making to us. He's saying, I want you to come to a place where your own iniquity, your sin, your wickedness is not counted, right? The idea again is it's not reckoned, it's not credited, that your iniquity is not counting against you. This is what's in verse two. against whom the Lord counts or reckons no iniquity. He considers it not ours." Now, of course, we know that God doesn't simply forget it, it doesn't just float away into nothing land. The reason that it's not counted or reckoned against us is because it was counted or reckoned against his son. But the result of all of this, again, is that the man is infinitely blessed, that he is supremely happy. Well, let's apply this by just walking through. What is the experience? What is the path to which God is calling us? Well, in a nutshell, if I were to put a banner over all of it, it would be coming clean with God. It would be removing our own faux cover and putting on a perfect and effective covering, an alien covering. Well, so how do we start? How does one come clean with God? Well, David puts this both negatively and positively here for our first step. And we see in verse five, David vows to rid himself of deceit. Deceit being this vain covering. And note that in a couple places here, David speaks of his own silence. Understand that silence is often spoken of in scripture as deceit. as lying. See, if we fail to come before God, if we fail to come before our neighbors in confession of sin, what we're doing is we're pretending as if it doesn't exist. God calls us to articulate, to be specific about our sins, and to actually articulate our sins. to no longer be silent, to no longer run from the truth, to no longer run from God, but to come face to face, to name our sin, and to no longer be silent. Well, positively, this looks like confessing our sins. Also in verse five, to confess our sins. And in this instance, David is doing it in verse six. We see that he's doing it in prayer, which is fundamentally and primarily how we come before the Lord. We come before him in prayer. We come before the true and living God and confess our sins first to him. To humble ourselves before him. Well, if you're like me, I think every one of us at some point struggles with this objection. And that is, we think, but this couldn't possibly be safe. How can we come before a holy, holy, holy God and be honest about how wretched we are? This couldn't be safe. But God can be trusted. And David gives us assurance of this actually in many places here in just these short 11 verses. We see in verse seven that God is a hiding place. He is a refuge. He is a place where we can go with our deepest, darkest, most vile sins. He is a hiding place for me. He is a hiding place for you. And further that he also, verse seven, preserves us. that He preserves us from trouble. So far from us coming to Him with our sins and Him giving us trouble, He preserves us from trouble. And what a beautiful picture, also verse seven, He surrounds us with shouts of deliverance. Right? There's choirs of angels. The hosts of heaven rejoice when we come before the Lord and we confess our sins. We say, God, this is what I have done against you and you alone have I sinned. The angels rejoice. Shouts of deliverance surround us. In verse 10, The steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. So when we trust him, when we come before him with our sins, our reward is steadfast love surrounding us. And so that persistent nagging objection that I think we all struggle and wrestle with is answered here. No, do not be afraid. Yes, God is holy, but he is so long suffering. He is so gracious. He's so kind. And he loves us. Well, David, answers a very important question, and that is as we do this, the question is, when do we do it? And this is a very important question. When do we square with God? When do we come clean before God? When do we tear away our fig leaves? And this is, Also a very common thing that humans wrestle with when confronted with the truth is we tend to think, you know what? I know I need to square with God. I'm gonna do that tomorrow. And then tomorrow comes and we say, I'm gonna do that tomorrow. And then the next day comes. But this is not so, this is not what we are to do. David says, therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you when? At a time when you may be found. Brother, sister, friend, today is the day when God may be found. If you come before the Lord at a time when he may be found, then, second part of verse six, surely in the rush of great waters, those great waters will not reach you. Why? Because you will have a covering. You will be surrounded. You will have refuge. But when those great waters come upon you and you have not come before the Lord, You've not squared with Him. You've not come clean with Him. Those great waters will reach us. Those great waters will overwhelm us. The wrath of God will fall upon us. And God will not be mocked. Seek the Lord while He may be found. The time to come clean is not tomorrow. The time to come clean is today, while he may be found. We already answered the how. Verse six answers this. The way to do it is by coming before the Lord in prayer. By getting on our knees, you may actually get on your knees, but the position of your heart fundamentally is one of, God, I bring absolutely nothing to you but some terrible sin. That's it. And so we prostrate ourselves before Him. Well, what's next? Well, This is the good and glorious news, that the thing next is to receive forgiveness. It really is that simple. In verse one, David says that this happy man is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. In verse two, against whom the Lord counts or reckons or holds no iniquity, not a little bit, None. Against this person, the Lord holds zero iniquity. And so it is to receive. Verse five, you, this is David speaking to the Lord, you forgave the iniquity of my sin. And here, I think we have to consider Who David was, just remember what David did in his lifetime. He was a murderous, adulterous, I don't know that you can get a whole lot worse than that, but he was a murderer and an adulterer, and of course that is in some sense just getting started. David was forgiven. The iniquity of David's sins were forgiven, not in part, but in whole. And so if you have murdered, if you have committed adultery, I have good news for you. Come before the Lord. Tear off your thin sham veil. Confess your sins. Beg him for forgiveness and receive it. The next thing that we're to do is to be secure in all of our circumstances. Again, in verse six, in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach this blessed man. They cannot reach him. In verse seven, you are a hiding place for me. This is the portrait of a man who is secure in every single circumstance. No matter what his circumstances look like, he is secure. You preserve me from trouble, you surround me with shouts of deliverance. And the steadfast love of God is surrounding this man, this man who trusts in the Lord, verse 10. And then lastly, what's the final step in all of this? We have it in verse 11. This was our call to worship. And what we're to do is to rejoice, to rejoice. that this body of sin and death, this iniquity is no longer reckoned to us. It's no longer held against us, but it's been taken care of. We've been given a covering to rejoice, to be happy, to be supremely happy. So brothers and sisters, Psalm 32 is calling us to enjoy the treasure of a clean conscience and all of the blessings that it brings with it. Let's pray. Lord, to think that this is possible for anyone is fantastic, is really hard to believe. And so Lord, we confess that we have little faith here, that we doubt your sure promises that you've given to us right here in this 30-second psalm. We question you, we think, how could this really be? And if so, could it really be for somebody as bad as me? So Lord, we ask that you would give us faith, Lord, if there are any here in the congregation that have not been given that gift, Lord, please, we beg of you, give that gift to them, O Lord. And Lord, for those who have been given this gift of faith, Lord, we confess that we need more of it. That every single day, every single hour, Lord, we struggle. We are men and women of little faith. We stand in great need. So Lord, please help us to believe this good news. Help us to see that you have given us a covering and that you are holding it out before us. And all that we need to do is come before you confessing our own sin, our deserving of your wrath. Lord, we thank you that you are a merciful God, that you love us far beyond what we could ever dream or imagine. We thank you, Lord, for holding out your beautiful gospel to us in this psalm. So we pray all these things for your great and beautiful namesake, amen.