April 30, 2014
Psalm 32:3-5

(All scripture is from the New King James Version unless otherwise indicated.)

In Psalm 32 David continues to think back on the grievous sins in his life – committing adultery with Bathsheba, and murdering her husband Uriah to cover it up.  He rejoices in the first two verses that his “…transgression is forgiven…sin is covered…[and God did] not impute iniquity…” to him.  But in verses 3 through 5 the king remembers the dry year he had between when he committed his sins and when he confessed and repented after the prophet Nathan confronted him.  The story is recorded in II Samuel 11 and 12.  But back to Psalm 32:3 through 5:

    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; my vitality was
    turned into the drought of summer.  Selah.  I acknowledged my sin to
    You, and my iniquity I have not hidden.  I said, “I will confess my trans-
    gressions to the LORD,” and You forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah.

Two Selahs – why are they there?  According to Eerdman’s The New Bible Dictionary, Selah – meaning “to lift up” – “…is generally agreed…a musical or liturgical sign, though its precise meaning is not known….”  It may mean to lift up the tempo or volume of the music and/or voice, or to lift up the hands in praise to God.  So this was a Psalm to be sung in public worship.  In other words, David’s sin was publically known, and he wanted also his people to understand he had confessed and repented of his deeds!  Public confession is good – if the sin is publically known – and it can help cement the determination of the repentant one to turn from the sin confessed and get back into fellowship with God.

David wrote, “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; my vitality was turned into the drought of summer.”  Sin has that effect!  Isaiah wrote about it in Isaiah 59:2:  “…your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.”  It sure makes for a dry time spiritually – like “…the drought of summer…”!

Dear people, Jesus said He came so that His followers “…may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10).  That abundant life is for the here and now – for it would be redundant if it referred to heaven – since heaven is obviously abundant! (see I Corinthians 2:9; Revelation 21:3 through 5).  But I firmly believe the abundance referred to by the Lord is not necessarily abundance of health, money and things!  It is the abundance of “…the fruit of the Spirit…love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22 and 23 – NIV).  With those qualities abundantly manifested in our lives, we can get through anything victoriously!

But if you take away such abundant fruit, life seems to increasingly proceed into “…the drought of summer….”  The tragedy of it all is that it happens so subtly, we often don’t realize how far we have moved away from the Lord and His blessings!  We don’t realize it, that is, until someone – or someOne – brings us up short to know what we have done and where we now are!

That is what happened to David when God sent Nathan to confront the king.  It must have taken a great deal of courage on behalf of the prophet, because David was the king of Israel!  He could have ordered what the Red Queen screamed in Alice in Wonderland, “Off with his head!”  But, no, David was a better man than that.  In verse three of our Psalm he tells us, “I acknowledged my sin to You, 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.”

It is a conscious decision – confess and repent of your sin!  If we try to hide it, we are only fooling ourselves.  It is written in Hebrews 4:13, “…there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.”  And it says in Proverbs 28:13, “He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.”

David certainly found mercy!  For when he confessed and repented – even though those sins included adultery and murder! – he tells us, “…You forgave the iniquity of my sin.”  I stand forgiven in Jesus Christ!  My relationship to Him will never be broken.  But if I try to hide my sins – and not confess and turn from them – I will break the sweet fellowship with my God!  I don’t want to do that!  Do you?

April 28, 2014
Psalm 32:1, 2

(All scripture is from the New King James Version unless otherwise indicated.)

Some time after King David wrote Psalm 51 – that great psalm of confession and repentance – he was thinking back on the whole incident of adultery and murder and penned Psalm 32.  Here are the first two verses:

    Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.  Blessed
    is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit
    there is no guile.

I imagine David often thought about what he had done.  After all, he had the constant reminder of Bathsheba living in the royal palace as his wife.  He had taken her in adultery, and had murdered her husband Uriah to cover up the resulting pregnancy which would have tarnished the king’s reputation.  Uriah was a faithful soldier in service to his king.  As a matter of fact, he is listed as one of David’s “…valiant men of the armies…” in I Chronicles 11:41.  All in all, it was a terribly sinful time in David’s life, and I’m sure the memory of it often played on the king’s mind.

Why am I so sure?  Because many times it comes to my mind the things I have done in the past – things of which I am ashamed before God and man.  We all have such sinful things in our lives – both in the past and recently – because we are all sinful human beings.  It just goes with the territory!  And Satan loves to bring up our past sinful episodes.  He is called in Revelation 12:10, “…the accuser of our brethren…who accused them before God day and night.”  Not only does he bring up our past to discredit Christians before God, but his purpose is to make us so focus on our past mistakes that we beat ourselves up and become spiritually useless to God!

In Psalm 32, David dealt with this problem of memory and guilt and shows us the way to do it also.  Consider again verse 1:  “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.”  Forgiven and covered!  Covered by what?  His sin was covered over from the sight of God by the blood of the sacrifices the priests offered upon the bronze altar on behalf of the sinful people.

We have an even better deal today!  All those sacrifices pointed toward Jesus Christ offering Himself on the cross.  Consider what it says in I Peter 1:18 and 19:
:
    …you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or
    gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but
    with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without
    spot.

So effective is the blood of Jesus that it does not just cover over our sins, but – as John the Baptist put it in John 1:29 – “Behold!  The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”  So taken away are our sins that God tells us in Hebrews 10:17, “…their sins and their lawless deeds will I remember no more.”  He does not even keep our sins in mind!  So why should we?  We, like David, are forgiven – and our sins are gone!

Go on to verse 2:  “Blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.”  ‘Imputation’ – this is at the heart of the gospel!  Not only are our sins not imputed to us, Christ’s own righteousness is imputed to our account – to our person – so we stand before God as righteous as Jesus Christ Himself!  No wonder David pronounces such a one blessed – twice blessed in two verses!

Blessed – Spurgeon, in his commentary on the psalms, The Treasury of David, reminds us, “The word blessed is in the plural, oh, the blessednesses! the double joys, the bundles of happiness, the mountains of delight!” Since the Hebrew singular it can be translated happy, the plural blessed can mean happies!  The one whose “…transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered,” the one “…to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity…” has the happies!!!  The same plurality is applied to the use of the Greek equivalent of blessed – as Jesus used it, for instance, in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5.

So do you have the happies?!  You can if your “…transgression is forgiven..,” if your “…sin is covered,” if to your account “…the LORD does not impute iniquity….”  Instead of dwelling on past mistakes, past sins, remind yourself that – as it says in I John 1:7:  “…the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”  It made such a difference in David’s life!  It can make an amazing difference in yours also!

April 25, 2014
Psalm 51:16-19

(All scripture is from the New King James Version unless otherwise indicated.)

We come to the last four verses of David’s great psalm of repentance.  We have seen him start out with profound sorrow for his misdeeds of adultery and murder, and plead with God to wash away his sins according to the Heavenly Father’s mercy.  After expressing such personal needs, the king begins to think of his fellow Israelites, and their need to be close to God.  Finally, he turns to the issue of worship – corporate worship at the central tabernacle.  Here are verses 16 through 19 of Psalm 51:

    For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in
    burnt offering.  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a con-
    trite heart — These, O God, You will not despise.  Do good in Your good plea-
    sure to Zion; build the walls of Jerusalem.  Then You shall be pleased with the
    sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering; then
    they shall offer bulls on Your altar.

Have you seen the progression as we have studied this psalm over six blogs?  I believe this should be the order of all confession and repentance.  You get the problem of your personal sin before God solved by His mercy and grace first.  Then – being reestablished in fellowship with the Father through the blood of Jesus Christ – your concern should encompass others.  There are unsaved people who need to be reconciled back to their Creator.  And there is the matter of worship with other believers.  God wants us to praise and honor Him individually and as the Body of Christ, the Church, together.

Sacrifice – we don’t “…offer bulls on…[God’s] altar” anymore.  But He still wants the “…sacrifices…[of] a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart.”  God told Samuel what is important to Him in I Samuel 16:7:  “For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”  Yes, He wants good works to be manifest in the believer’s life, but not taking the place of a clean heart that is right with God (see Ephesians 2:8 through 10 for the proper order).

There is another related matter that David puts forth in verse 18: “Do good in Your good pleasure to Zion; build the walls of Jerusalem.”  This request could be interpreted to refer to God building up the corporate spirituality of the capital – and the whole nation.  But I think it more concerns the physical and military protection of both Jerusalem and all Israel.  But such protection and spirituality are very closely related! 

In the book of Judges, there are seven oppressions of Israel recorded.  And each oppression by their pagan neighbors is directly related to apostasy in the Israelite nation!  When the Jews turned from worshiping Jehovah to the idols of the pagan nations, God withdrew His protection and national security.  When they returned to Him, the Lord restored their safety and prosperity.  This principle is supported in many scriptures.  Here are some from the psalms:

•    Psalm 20:7 – “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God.”

•    Psalm 33:12 – “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, and the people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance.”

•    Psalm 33:16 through 19 – “No king is saved by the multitude of an army; a mighty man is not delivered by great strength.  A horse is a vain hope for safety; neither shall it deliver any by its great strength.  Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His mercy, to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine.”

•    Psalm 147:10 and 11 – “He does not delight in the strength of the horse: he takes no pleasure in the legs of a man.  The LORD takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy.”

Although God does not emphasize national godliness today – but faithfulness in His Church – the principle still holds for nations.  America was founded as a Christian nation.  The further we move away from God – the more we remove Him from our public lives, our educational institutes, and the government – the more the United States of America becomes vulnerable to His judgment! 

This is why we need revival among Christians!  We are the key!  God said the same in II Chronicles 7:14:

    …if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray
    and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from
    heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

It was true for Israel, and the principle stands today.  Think about it!

April 23, 2014
Psalm 51:11-15

(All scripture is from the New King James Version unless otherwise indicated.)

What a heartfelt confession is Psalm 51!  David penned it to express his sorrow and repentance for committing adultery with Bathsheba and then having her husband Uriah murdered.  That sad story is recorded in II Samuel 11.  The king’s spiritual turnaround came a year later when Nathan – prophet and court advisor – confronted David concerning the king’s sins.  Here, we will look at Psalm 51:11 through 15:

    Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit
    from me.  Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me with Your
    generous Spirit.  Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners
    shall be converted to You.  Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, the God
    of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness.  O
    Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise.

I love verse 11 because it reminds me that in this age of grace followers of the Lord Jesus Christ do not have to concern themselves with what was troubling David:  “Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.”  In Old Testament times – the dispensation of the law – God’s Holy Spirit did not permanently indwell Jehovah’s faithful.  He would come upon them, and even fill them from within for specific circumstances, but He was not a continual resident within (see Exodus 31:2 and 3; I Samuel 11:10 and 16:14 for examples).

But since Pentecost – the birth of the Church – the Holy Spirit has indwelt permanently all who come to Jesus Christ in faith, believing He is the only Savior who can wash away their sins by His precious blood!  This is why Jesus could say in Hebrews 13:5 and Matthew 28:20, “I will never leave you nor forsake you….I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”  He is with us because His Spirit resides in us!  Jesus also said in John 6:37, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.”  So we do not have to plead, “Do not cast me away from Your presence….”

Paul wrote about this in Ephesians 1:12 through 14:

    …we…trusted in Christ…in whom  also, having believed, you were sealed with
    the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the
    redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.

We are Christ’s and He is ours – marked permanently as the Lord’s possession by the indwelling Holy Spirit – until Jesus returns from heaven to claim His own!

However, the next phrase – verse 12 or David’s psalm – surely does apply to Christians today!  “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me with Your generous Spirit.”  David experienced it, and we can too!  When we disobey God and don’t confess and repent of that sin, we lose close fellowship with Him – and the joy that goes with that fellowship!  “The joy of our salvation” is restored upon confession and repentance!  And then our prayer should be that we will remain true to Him, “upheld by His generous Spirit.”

Notice the progression in verse 13:  “Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You.”  I have found that I lose my concern for others to come to Jesus Christ when I have unconfessed sin in my life.  But when I am restored to fellowship with my Lord – and back where I should be – then my desire to see the people be saved and grow in Christ returns.

“Bloodguiltiness” in verse 14 has a two-fold meaning:

•    Before God, the murderer – the one who willfully takes another’s life in hate and/or anger – is held accountable to the Creator of life!  God told Cain in Genesis 4:10 and 11, “What have you done?  The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground.  So now you are cursed from the earth….”

•    Before man, the murderer is legally held accountable.  Part of the Noahic covenant,  still in effect today, is spelled out in Genesis 9:6:  “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed….”

David’s plea to deliver him from bloodguiltiness is based on one thing only:  “O God, the God of my salvation….”  God was David’s personal Savior!  And He is ours – through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ!

The result of such deliverance?  Verses 14 and 15:  “…my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness.  O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise.”  The more you understand to what degree God through Jesus Christ has saved you and delivered you from sin, the more His praises will be on your lips – and that from a heart filled with a new song giving glory unto Him!

April 21, 2014
Psalm 51:7-10

(All scripture is from the New King James Version unless otherwise indicated.)

We are looking at Psalm 51 – David’s great psalm of confession after he committed adultery with Bathsheba and tried to cover it up by having her husband Uriah murdered.  It was perhaps a year later – a dry year spiritually for the king of Israel who was said to be “…a man after [God’s]…own heart…” (Acts 13:22) – that Nathan the prophet confronted David about his evil deeds.  David confessed, “I have sinned against the Lord.” (II Samuel 12:13).  The king must have often contemplated the deeds he had done.  And he wrote at least three psalms related to his sinful actions – Psalms 51, 38 and 32 – in that probable order.  We will consider all three in this study, but today we’ll concentrate on Psalm 51:7 through 10:

    Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter
    than snow.  Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which You
    have broken may rejoice.  Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my
    iniquities.  Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a steadfast spirit
    within me.

If you are like me, Christian, I sometimes tend to beat myself up over past sinful actions in my own life.  But this section of Psalm 51 tells us to what extent our sins are forgiven – and I rejoice in its truth!

When he pleads, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean,” David is thinking back to Israel’s beginning as a nation – redeemed from slavery in Egypt by God’s mighty power.  Ten plagues pounded the Egyptians.  And ten plagues defeated the god’s whom they worshiped.  The tenth plague took the life of the firstborn of every man and beast in Egypt – except in the homes marked with the blood of the Passover lamb.  That blood was applied to the entrance doorways of the house – the sides and lintel – by dipping hyssop sprigs into a bowl of the lamb’s blood and striking the three upper parts of the entrance.  God said in Exodus 12:13:

    Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are.  And
    when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be on
    you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

So the blood spared the Israelite from God’s judgement!

Of course, this pointed toward “…the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” (I Peter 1:19).  But David did not see the fulness of the coming Messiah.  So he looked back to the great act of redemption in the Old Testament – the Exodus.  “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean….”

“…wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”  Isaiah wrote three centuries later using the same theme – perhaps inspired by David’s words:  “…though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” (Isaiah 1:18).  “Whiter than snow?”  Every snowflake – or raindrop for that matter – has a speck of dust or dirt at its center around which water vapor coalesces.  Therefore, if God cleanses us by the blood, we are “whiter than snow!”

“Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which You have broken may rejoice.”  I’m glad God is in the bone-breaking business – not literally, but figuratively!  We are broken when we see our sins as God sees them!  They are horrible in His sight – an affront to His holiness and justice!  We deserve His condemnation because we are sinners!  But when we come to Him in faith, confessing our sins and trusting in His provision for taking away our sins, He so heals our brokenness that we will surely rejoice! 

“Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.”  God has both blotted out our sins and has hidden His face from our iniquities!  So complete is His work that He tells us in Hebrews 10:17, “…their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.”  Our sins are gone – washed away by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ!

“Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”  This prayer fits naturally with the plea of the repentant sinner to cleanse away his sins.  It is for living life from that point of confession forward.  Once cleansed of sin, David did not want to fall into sin again – and neither should we!  So in other words our request might be “God, help me not to sin against you from this moment on.  Now that I am cleansed from my sins, keep me clean in my heart and make me strong in my spirit so I can stay away from sin!”  That’s my prayer.  Is it yours?

April 18, 2014
Psalm 51:3-6

(All scripture is from the New King James Version unless otherwise indicated.)

It is recorded in II Samuel 12:13 that King David confessed to Nathan “I have sinned against the LORD.”  This was after the prophet had challenged him concerning his sin involving adultery with Bathsheba and murdering her husband Uriah to cover it up.  This short confession was the condensed version of what David later wrote in Psalm 51.  We are studying this psalm because it is perhaps the greatest model of godly confession and repentance ever penned.  Today we will consider verses 3 through 6:

    For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.  Against
    You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight — that You may
    be found just when You speak, and blameless when You judge.  Behold, I was
    brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.  Behold, You
    desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part You will make me to
    know wisdom.

Why does this section start with “For…”?  Because it is linked back to the preceding thought in verses 1 and 2:  “…blot out my transgressions.  Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.”  For the believer, cleansing from sin to restore fellowship – not relationship – with the Father is conditional upon confessing that sin to Him!  I John 1:9 says this very thing:  “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  So David acknowledged his transgressions. 

And, unless your conscience is hardened by continuous living in unconfessed sin, you will experience what David did, “…my sin is ever before me.”  Thank God He doesn’t let us off the hook easily!  Our conscience will keep that sin before us until we tell Him all about it!  That way, we can get back to enjoying the close presence of our Heavenly Father.

The next phrase of David’s confession is, “Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight….”  Wait!  Didn’t he grievously sin against Bathsheba, Uriah, and the whole Israelite nation over which he ruled and set a kingly example?  Yes, he did!  But primarily, all sin is against God, first and foremost!  God is totally holy and just – “…just when You speak, and blameless when You judge.”  And we must first answer to Him!  So – while we should make restitution to others against whom we transgress – we must deal primarily with God!

Some people have had trouble with the next statement:  “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.”  They find here what is construed to teach sex is sinful!  That’s not what David is saying!  He is putting forth the idea of total depravity!  As Paul wrote in Romans 3:10 through 18:

    As it is written:  “There is none righteous, no, not one;  There is none who
    understands, there is none who seeks after God.  They have all gone out of
    the way; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does
    good, no, not one….Their throat is an open tomb; with their tongues they
    have practiced deceit…the poison of asps is under their lips….Whose mouth
    is full of cursing and bitterness….Their feet are swift to shed blood; destruc-
    tion and misery are in their ways; and the way of peace have they not known
    ….There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

It’s not a pretty picture of humankind!  And it does not say every person has manifested all these traits!  But humanity – taken together – surely has!  We are born with a sin nature.  And we will all sin before God!  This is what David is expressing.

So we all are shot through and through with sin!  But what does God want instead?  “Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.”  And He has made the way to replace our sin nature with a righteous one.  It is called being “…born again.” (John 3:3 and 7; I Peter 1:23).  When we receive Jesus Christ as our Savior – trusting in His blood, His sacrifice on the cross to pay for our sins – He, by His Holy Spirit, brings new life – actually a new creation – into our being! (see II Corinthians 5:17).  We then have the capacity to live out our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit and not in slavery to sin!

I want this kind of truth – this kind of wisdom – in my life!  Don’t you?

April 16, 2014
Psalm 51:1, 2

(All scripture is from the New King James Version unless otherwise indicated.)

Our introduction in the last blog described King David’s sin of adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband Uriah to cover up the affair.  David spent a spiritually dry year because of his unconfessed sin, until Nathan – the king’s trusted prophet and advisor – confronted him with the whole nasty business.  Although David’s response seemed an inadequate confession –  “I have sinned against the LORD.” (II Samuel 12:13) – Nathan still pronounced, “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die.”  But behind that ‘inadequate confession’ lies Psalm 51 – one of the greatest expressions of sincere confession ever recorded!  Here is the psalmist’s introductory heading and the first two verses – Psalm 51:1 and 2:

    To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David when Nathan the prophet went to
    him, after he had gone into Bathsheba.  Have mercy upon me, O God, ac-
    cording to Your lovingkindness; according to the multitude of Your tender
    mercies, blot out my transgressions.  Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
    and cleanse me from my sin.

We will get back to the introductory heading in a few moments.  Let’s concentrate on verses 1 and 2.  David pleaded with the Lord, “Have mercy upon me, O God…blot out my transgressions.  Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.”  But on what basis was his plea made?

Too many people are depending – or should I say, hoping – that their sins will be either outweighed or forgiven on the basis of their good works!  In Meteora, Greece, I visited the Varlaam Monastery, built on a sandstone rock pillar rising 1224 feet from the ground level!  Centuries ago there were 24 monasteries atop the many sandstone monoliths of Meteora.  Now there are six remaining.  One fresco in the Varlaam Monastery depicts the last great judgment.  With angels on one side of a heavenly scale and demons on the other, souls being judged await the outcome of their good works weighed against their evil deeds.

That’s not how it works!  Paul plainly wrote in Titus 3:5:  “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit….”  And there are more scriptures that say much the same thing! (see Romans 4:5; Ephesians 2:8 and 9; II Timothy 1:9).  As a matter of fact, Isaiah 64:6 directly points up the problem:  “But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags….”  We are shot through with sin – even our so-called good deeds!  Before God, if our righteousnesses – the very best we can do – are like filthy rags, what do our sins look like to Him!

David knew that the basis of being washed and cleansed of his grievous sins was only by God’s loving-kindness and tender mercies!  We, as Christians, can look back and see how God can so forgive, wash and cleanse –  “…the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” (I John 1:7).  Jesus gave His life to pay for our sins on the cross.  When we invite Him into our hearts and lives, we are made clean and acceptable to the Father by the Son’s own imputed righteousness.  And as Christians, we are kept clean by His blood as we confess our sins to Him. (see I John 1:9).

Now, back to the psalm’s introductory heading:  “To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone into Bathsheba.”  David wanted this to be a public record of his terrible sin and his confession.  And he also wanted the people to know by what means he was cleansed and restored to fellowship with Jehovah God.  He had tried to cover up his sin by adding more sin – murder – to his rap sheet!  But his sins were no longer secret.  Since God knew all of the kings nefarious deeds, and washed him clean by His loving-kindness and tender mercies, David wanted the people of his kingdom to know that same way back to joy and fellowship with God.  That’s why he started the introduction with “To the chief Musician….”  This psalm of repentance was to be sung as part of temple worship!

Thank God David was so open to a public record of his sin and confession!  I have used this psalm to express my own heartfelt confession to God!  I can’t imagine better words to pray when I realize my sin and want to come back into fellowship with my Heavenly Father!

April 14, 2014
II Samuel 12:7-9, 13

(All scripture is from the New King James Version unless otherwise indicated.)

David had sinned – and big time!  He had taken Bathsheba, another man’s wife, had an intimate relation with her, and she became pregnant.  To cover his deed, he summoned her husband Uriah back from the front lines where the army was fighting the Ammonites – David hoping Uriah would sleep with his wife, and then the pregnancy would be considered as his doing and not David’s.  After all, Uriah had been away from wife and family for probably several weeks.  But this soldier was loyal to his king and his fellow fighting men.  If they were deployed to the battlefield and away from family, Uriah would not enjoy the company of his wife while in Jerusalem to give a war report.  David even tried to force the issue by getting the man drunk at dinner with the king.  But the soldier stood true to his convictions.

So David played his trump card.  He wrote a note to Joab – the commander of the Israelite army – telling him to “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retreat from him, that he may be struck and die.” (II Samuel 11:15).  With Uriah dead and out of the way, David’s sin of impregnating Bathsheba would not only be hidden, but he could take her as one of his wives and enjoy her charms often!  And David even had Uriah deliver his own death warrant – sealed for only Joab to read!

But God knew!  For He knows everything!  And God sent Nathan, the prophet – and the king’s close advisor – to confront David.  He told the king a story about a rich man who stole a poor man’s only lamb to feed a guest that had arrived – instead of taking a lamb from his own large flock.  In anger, David condemned the man saying he should die for such a grievous deed!  In condemning the rich man, David condemned himself!  For Nathan said, “You are the man!”  Here is the interaction between Nathan and the king, from II Samuel 12:7 through 9, and 13:

    Then Nathan said to David, ‘You are the man!  Thus says the LORD God of
    Israel, “I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand
    of Saul. I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your
    keeping, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah.  And if that had been
    too little, I would have given you much more!  Why have you despised the
    commandment of the LORD, to do evil in His sight?  You have killed Uriah
    the Hittite with the sword; you have taken his wife to be your wife, and have
    killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon.”’…Then David said to
    Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the LORD.’  And Nathan said to David, ‘The
    LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die.’

If you just read this account from II Samuel, you might think that David’s response, “I have sinned against the LORD,” was pretty superficial considering his heinous deeds – especially considering the fact that it involved the death of an innocent man!  And Nathan responded, “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die.”  Does God forgive so easily?  Do we just have to mouth the words, “I have sinned…” and that’s it?  No, that is not just it!  For out of this incident has come some of the deepest feelings of repentance that have ever been expressed, and some of the greatest words of repentance that have ever been penned!

This is the introduction of a multi-blog study of Psalm 51 and Psalm 32.  And in considering these psalms, we must also remember that the time between David’s first illicit desire to have Bathsheba until Nathan confronted the king was over a year – a very dry year spiritually – especially for a man who is described in I Samuel 13:14 and Acts13:22 as “…a man after…[God’s] own heart….”

My prayer is that this study will help us see the seriousness of sin before God.  And may we also become aware of sin’s consequences to our own lives and the lives of those around us.  Amen!

April 11, 2014
Deuteronomy 30:14, 15, 19, 20

(All scripture is from the New King James Version unless otherwise indicated.)

A friend who is a strong Christian lady works in the regional headquarters of a liberal Christian denomination.  She had a minister stand at her desk and tell her, “I don’t believe a loving God would send anyone to hell!”  She looked at him and asked, “What Bible do you read?!”  The Bible plainly speaks of hell – a place of eternal suffering, described in Revelation 21:8 as “…the lake which burns with fire and brimstone [sulfur] which is the second death.”  It certainly is not a place to which anyone would want to go!  It is not even created for man, for in Matthew 25:41 Jesus said it is “…prepared for the devil and his angels….”  But it stands to reason, if someone chooses to follow Satan in this life, he or she will join him in torment throughout eternity! 

Herein lies the premise for this blog:  God does not send anyone to hell.  We choose the path that takes us there!  And God pleads with us to turn from that path of sin and destruction, and turn unto Him – unto life and blessing!  Here is His plea to the Jewish people just before they entered the Promised Land of Canaan – Deuteronomy 30:14 and 15, 19 and 20.  It certainly can illustrate Jesus plea to us today:

    …the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may
    do it.  See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil….I call
    heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you
    life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and
    your descendants may live; that you may love the LORD your God, and that
    you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life
    and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the
    LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.

This may be seen as the summation of what is called ‘The Palestinian Covenant’.  If the Jews put their faith in Jehovah God, if they followed His leading and obeyed His commands, they would be richly blessed.  If they disobeyed in unbelief, they would lose the blessing of land, national identity, and material abundance.  But the point is, God gave them a choice!  Verse 19:  “…I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live….”  He didn’t force them to make their choice, but He sure was rooting for them to choose God and good!!!

One of the most precious gifts God has given us as human beings is freedom of will – the right to choose and make our own decisions.  And He will not violate that free will!  He will allow us to choose “…death and evil…and cursing…” (verses 15 and 19) if that is what we insist we want.  But who would want “…death and evil…and cursing…?”  If people really understood the implications of their choices, they would flee sin and hell, and run to the open arms of the Lord Jesus Christ!  The problem is that “…they are without excuse…for God has shown…to them…His eternal power and Godhead…[and His] wrath…revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness…” (Romans 1:18 through 20).  People – in one way or another – choose to turn away from God and unto eternal destruction!

How has the Lord set before us today “…life and good…and blessing…” (verses 15 and 19)?  Jesus Christ – Son of God, God the Son – came from heaven’s throne to earth to live the perfect life before the Father that we could never live.  He never sinned once!  Then He voluntarily offered Himself to die in our place – the cruel death upon the cross that we deserved.  He became both sin and sinner before God.  And the Father poured out His eternal wrath upon the Son – the wrath that so rightly belonged on us!  Jesus fully paid the price for sin, to redeem us from hell and give us eternal life.  And the Father’s seal of acceptance upon the Son’s sacrifice was when Jesus rose from the dead, never to die again!  And He has not only purchased for us eternal life in heaven someday, He offers us abundant life now!  We can – even now, in this life – experience the fruit of the Holy Spirit abounding in our lives:  “…love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness and self-control…” (Galatians 5:22 and 23 – NIV).

Now, what are you going to do about it?  If you are not a Christian, run to Jesus!  Confess your sins to Him and accept Him as your Savior!  He Himself said in John 6:37:  “…the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.”  And if you are already a Christian, then determine to make Jesus Christ Lord of your life every day!  For it is in obedience to Him that we find the freedom of the Holy Spirit and His fruit manifested abundantly in our lives.

He has “…set before you today life and good, death and evil..life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live.” (verses 15 and 19).

April 9, 2014
Hebrews 4:12, 13

(All scripture is from the New King James Version unless otherwise indicated.)

The Constitution of the United States of America is a document consisting of seven Articles that serve as the basis of the supreme law of the country.  Adopted in 1787, it has had 27 amendments over the last 237 years, the first ten being called the Bill of Rights.  Very briefly, the seven Articles embody  the doctrine of the separation and balance of powers – congressional, judicial and executive; the relationship between states, and between the several states and the federal government; and procedures for amending and ratifying the Constitution.

The Bill of Rights – the first ten Amendments of the Constitution:

1.  Freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition.
2.  Right to keep and bear arms in order to maintain a well regulated militia.
3.  No quartering of soldiers.
4.  Freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures.
5.  Right to due process of law, freedom from self-incrimination, double jeopardy.
6.  Rights of accused persons, e.g., right to a speedy and public trial.
7.  Right of trial by jury in civil cases.
8.  Freedom from excessive bail, cruel and unusual punishments.
9.  Other rights of the people – the Constitution’s authors believed that fundamental rights
exist that are not expressly enumerated in the first eight amendments and intended
by the ninth that the list of rights included in the previous eight not be deemed
exhaustive.
10. Powers reserved to the states.

The additional 17 Amendments cover such things as voting rights, slavery, income tax and presidential terms of office among others.

Some say the Constitution is A Living Document – that is, open to new interpretation as society evolves and changes over the years.  Much of the change of meaning from what the original framers of the Constitution meant is done by judges who think such originalism cannot cover new situations society faces today – such as laws applicable to the sexual revolution and the space and computer age.

I – and many conservatives – agree with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalea who spoke at a constitutional symposium hosted by the State Bar of Georgia on Friday, March 14.  He said, “The Constitution is not a living organism.  It’s a legal document, and it says what it says and doesn’t say what it doesn’t say.”  He further argued that originalism and trying to figure out precisely what the ratified document means is the only option, otherwise you’re just telling judges to govern.  The Constitution can be amended by due process spelled out in the document itself, thus making it flexible.

Our scripture – Hebrews 4:12 and 13 – gives another meaning to A Living Document.  And to this one I whole-heartedly agree:

    For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged
    sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and mar-
    row, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.  And there is
    no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the
    eyes of Him to whom we must give account.

Whereas the Constitution should not be considered A Living Document, the Bible is definitely such a document!  It is the record of God’s plan of redemption of creation from the results of sin.  Such redemption culminated in His own Son dying on the cross in our place, for out sins – becoming sin and sinner before the Father, and fully paying the price for such rebellion so we could go free.  It is living because it shows forth the Living Word, Jesus Christ (see John 1:1 and 14; Revelation 19:13).  It is also living because as one reads it, the Holy Spirit adds vitality to the words read so they will convict and convince that one that Jesus only is “…the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6)  No other work written by man can do what the Bible does!

What can it do?  The Word can deeply touch and cut both the physical and non-physical parts of our being.  As the surgeon’s scalpel, it can cut out the life-threatening growths of the disease of sin and make space within for healing implantations.  But unlike the surgeon’s scalpel, there is no place too deep, too secret, for the Word to reach.  And as far as the One wielding the scalpel – He is omniscient!   As it says in verse 13, “…all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.”  That should be a great comfort to the obedient believer, and a great terror to the disobedient sinner!

I may disagree with you on the interpretation of the Constitution as A Living Document – and we can both be believers.  But the message of God’s Word is plain – that it is, and remains, A Living Document!  Do not treat it as anything else!  Take it in and let it do its “…living and powerful…” work in your life!