He's Got Me Covered--The Blessing of Total Forgiveness

“Psalms that Make Me Psing”  Series

A Message by Jim Hammond from Psalm 32

Danger of Bitterness, (or any Secret Sin)

Secrets can be destructive, no matter how long they've been buried, as residents of a Ukraine village found out. The Associated Press reported their story this way:

For 43 years Zinaida Bragantsova had been telling people there was a World War II bomb buried under her bed.

The story began in 1941 when the Germans advanced toward the Ukrainian city of Berdyansk. One night at the very start of the war, she was sitting by the window and sewing on her machine. Suddenly a noise was heard and a whistling close by. She got up and in the following moment was struck by a blast of wind. When she came to, the sewing machine was gone and there was a hole in the floor as well as in the ceiling.

Zinaida couldn't get any officials to check out her story, so she just moved her bed over the hole and lived with it—for the next 40 years. Finally, the woman's problem was uncovered. As phone cable was being laid in the area, demolition experts were called in to probe for buried explosives. "Where's your bomb, grandma?" asked the smiling army lieutenant sent to talk to Mrs. Bragantsova. "No doubt, under your bed?"

"Under my bed," Mrs. Bragantsova answered dryly.

And sure enough, there they found a 500-pound bomb. After evacuating 2,000 people from surrounding buildings, the bomb squad detonated the bomb. According to the report, "The grandmother, freed of her bomb, will soon receive a new apartment."

Many people live like that grandmother, with a bomb under the bed—a terrible secret, a great hurt, a seething anger that lays there for years while everyone goes on about their business. No one is safe until it's removed.[1]

Focus:  Your healing is not complete until you confess your secret sins. 

I.      Sin Is Only Covered When It is Uncovered! (1-2, 5)

Psalm 32:1-11 (NIV)

Of David. A maskil.

Blessed is he

whose transgressions are forgiven,

whose sins are covered.

[2] Blessed is the man

whose sin the Lord does not count against him

and in whose spirit is no deceit.

[5] Then I acknowledged my sin to you

and did not cover up my iniquity.

I said, "I will confess

my transgressions to the Lord"--

and you forgave

the guilt of my sin.

Selah

The blessed man is the one in whose spirit is no deceit. 

Internally, the peace of Christ reigns.  There is no internal battle.  No coverup.  No running or hiding from God, or from man.  Internally his heart is true.  His mind is set on things above not on things on earth.  Therefore, he makes no provision for the flesh.  In this state of truth he is blessed.

The story is told of a shoplifter who writes to a department store and says, "I've just become a Christian, and I can't sleep at night because I feel guilty. So here's $100 that I owe you."

Then he signs his name, and in a little postscript at the bottom he adds, "If I still can't sleep, I'll send you the rest."[2]

Application Question:  Is there any deceit? (2)

(Psalms 66:18 NIV)  "If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened;"

Personal Question (only you can answer this):  Am I fooling myself?

Do I give God token parts of my life to feel better, but still hide some things from him, and keep a secret sin?

Am I filling my heart and mind with God’s will, thoughts, and ways.  Or am I deceiving myself…hiding.  Filling my heart and mind with my will, my thoughts, my ways, which are really worldly ideas, worldly desires, wordly thoughts, and worldly ways.

If I am cherishing sin in my heart there is deceit in my spirit.

The Lord does not deliver us from our “friends”.  As long as we cherish sin, it doesn’t matter if we ask for deliverance.  It doesn’t matter if we go though religious ritual.  The Lord will not remove what we cherish in our heart.  But if we have a change of heart, if we turn from our sin, if we repent, then the Lord can work with us.  He can transform our desires; he can remove the sin; He can forgive us.  Sometimes the Lord has to take us through the process of pain to bring our heart around to see sin for what it is, an enemy, rather than a friend that we cherish and privately coddle.

God loves those who are pure in heart.  There is no lie hidden there; no hypocrisy.  It is honest.  It may be broken and contrite, but it is honest before God, without guile, without hypocrisy, without the deceitfulness of pride.

II.     God’s Hand Is Heavy On Hidden Sin (3-5)

The alternative to trusting yourself to God’s forgiveness through open confession is to hide sin and fail to confess it.  Your bones waste away.  You groan.  The Lord's hand weighs heavy upon the sinning Christian.  Conviction hurts.  If you deny it and fail to deal with conviction you exchange the pain for numbness.  But it is a numbness to God.  A numbness that dulls you spiritually.  Unfortunately it takes more pain to cut through that numbness.  When you are spiritually desensitized, God has to take stronger measures of action to get through to you.  When someone ignores conviction they exchange the lesser merciful pain of conviction and confession for the greater pains necessary to bring about conviction and confession.

Repentance is always difficult, and the difficulty grows still greater by delay. [3]

Because He Loves You Too Much To Let You Go Easy

[3] When I kept silent,

my bones wasted away

through my groaning all day long.

[4] For day and night

your hand was heavy upon me;

my strength was sapped

as in the heat of summer.

Selah

[5] Then I acknowledged my sin to you

and did not cover up my iniquity.

I said, "I will confess

my transgressions to the Lord"--

and you forgave

the guilt of my sin.

Selah

Do you have a secret?

• That secret will rule your life ruthlessly and ruin it.

III.    The Best Hiding Place Is In the Open (6-7)

[6] Therefore let everyone who is godly pray to you

while you may be found;

Have you been playing Hide N Seek with God.  This makes it sound like God is the one hiding but really aren’t we the ones hiding from God?  This Psalm asks you to seek God while he may be found.  One must turn quickly from sin to the Lord, "while the Lord may be found".  Will there be a time when God is hiding from us?  I don’t think that’s the point that David is making here.  The point is…after a while you stop playing hide n seek at all.  You stop looking altogether.  The Game will be over one day.  It’s too late to find God then. 

You cannot repent too soon because you do not know how soon it may be too late. [4]

To the degree that one continues in that deceit, and sin, the harder and harder it is to find God again.  Some never find him again and fall into their own destruction. (1 Timothy 1:19)  holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith.

On the other hand, those who have found God have found a great refuge of protection.  You find God out in the Open.  It’s not hard really.  You just have to stop hiding!

surely when the mighty waters rise,

they will not reach him.

[7] You are my hiding place;

you will protect me from trouble

and surround me with songs of deliverance.

Selah

During the Great Awakening, when the Spirit of God revived much of our nation's early faith, Jonathan Edwards was presiding over a massive prayer meeting. Eight hundred men prayed with him.

Into that meeting a woman sent a message asking the men to pray for her husband. The note described a man who had become unloving, prideful, and difficult.

Edwards read the message in private and then, thinking that perhaps the man described was present, made a bold request. Edwards read the note to the 800 men. Then he asked if the man who had been described would raise his hand, so that the whole assembly could pray for him. Three hundred men raised their hands.[5]

IV    Don’t Force God to Be Heavy Handed With You (8-10)

 [8] I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;

I will counsel you and watch over you.

[9] 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.

[10] Many are the woes of the wicked,

Application Question: Is your heart submissive or resistant?

but the Lord's unfailing love

surrounds the man who trusts in him.

[11] Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous;

sing, all you who are upright in heart!

Application Questions:        Is your heart upright?

LEADING QUESTION:  What do you think it means to be upright in heart?

The Lone Ranger Creed was once as familiar to boys in America as The Boy Scout Oath. Written by Fran Striker, it was the kind of creed that felt good. It read,

"I believe…

That to have a friend, a man must be one.
That all men are created equal and that everyone has within himself the power to make this a better world.
That God put the firewood there but that every man must gather and light it himself.
That a man should be prepared physically, mentally, and morally to fight when necessary for that which is right.
That a man should make the most of what equipment he has.
That "this government, of the people, by the people, and for the people" shall live always.
That men should live by the rule of what is best for the greatest number.
That sooner or later—somewhere, somehow—we must settle with the world and make payment for what we have taken.
That all things change but truth, and that truth alone lives on forever.
I believe in my Creator, my country, my fellow man."

This is the kind of religion most people want. Nothing here of personal sin or repentance, of judgment or hell, nor of a Savior and his sacrifice. And nothing that will bear a soul safely into eternity.[6]

V.     The Upright Heart Can Rejoice Because it is Humble (10b-11)

QUOTE:  Paul Westphal is quoted in Sports Spectrum magazine: to have said,

Being a Christian is not an ego thing. A lot of people accuse Christians of claiming salvation and then thinking that makes them better than somebody else. You know, it's actually just the opposite. We simply know that we have a sin problem, and we know who can fix it.[7]

V. Gilbert Beers wrote…

Error is the inevitable consequence of living.
Mutual error is the inevitable consequence of living together.
Argument or faultfinding is the defensive mechanism to preserve an ego in trouble.
Confession is the sacrifice of ego on the altar of love.
Forgiveness is the balm of healing that soothes and heals the wounds of error.
Joy is the fresh new path, stretching out before the forgiver and the forgiven. [8]

Conclusion: As long as you’re running from God, your spirit finds no rest.

• Are you tyrannized by a secret?

• Confess to God your secret and let him lead you in the process of healing.