We are continuing our series in Psalm 19. For
those of you who may have missed last week’s message, let me remind us that
many conservative theologians divide this psalm into three sections. The first
section –verses 1-6 – speak of God’s general revelation of Himself to humanity
through creation itself. His existence is unmistakable to all who choose truth
over lies. That is why all who reject the obvious will be without excuse for
their atheism at the Judgment of Christ.
The second section we looked – verses 7-11 –
speak of the Bible as God’s special revelation through which He communicates with
humanity about sin, its eternal judgement, and of eternal life God offers to
everyone who comes to Him for forgiveness through obedient faith in Jesus
Christ alone.
Today
we will begin our look at the third section – verses 12-14 – which speaks to
what the godly and proper response ought to be to God’s general and special
revelations.
Before
we go any further, I want to again remind us of the inevitable COSTS of
refusing to hear what God says to us through His general and special
revelations. I want to remind us of them because they’re of the utmost
importance to anyone who wants a useful and rewarding life.
One
cost is that our refusal cuts into God’s heart even while He is lavishing His
love on those who reject His love. Listen, please, God created us to love us, just
as – in a manner of speaking – godly parents ‘create’ children to love them.
And just as it breaks the hearts of loving parents when their child turns away
from them, it breaks the Father’s heart when His children turn from Him.
That’s
one cost of rejecting Him. But there is yet another cost as we inevitably
harden our own hearts until spiritual blindness becomes permanent and we
are completely incapable of hearing God’s voice call us to Himself. He warns us
of that catastrophic truth throughout Scripture. A few examples can be found in
Exodus 4:21; 7:3–4; 9:12; Proverbs 1:20-33; Jeremiah 6:16-19; Matthew 13:14-16;
Romans 1:18-32.
The
third cost is this: Persistent rejection of God’s offer of forgiveness and
reconciliation with Him will result in his or her eternity in agone in the Lake
of Fire.
And
so, today we move into the last section of Psalm 19 which speaks to what ought
to be our response to God’s multiple revelations of Himself to humanity in
general and to you and me in particular: “Who
can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults.
Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins; Let them
not rule over me; Then I will be blameless, And I shall be acquitted
of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation
of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my rock and
my Redeemer.”
As
I prepared this message I wondered when David composed this psalm. Did he write it before or after his vile adultery with Bathsheba
and the murder of her husband? I thought it was – and is – an important
question and so I pursued that train of thought because there’s a sobering
lesson here for all of us, regardless of the timeline of this psalm’s
composition.
The short answer is that we don’t know when David wrote Psalm
19. Many theologians believe he wrote it before the Bathsheba incident. They
suggest the earlier date because the overall tenor of the psalm is positive. David
exults in God’s general and special revelations – as we have seen in verses
1-11. David also doesn’t mention any grievous sin he’d committed, such as that
which characterizes Psalms 32 and 51. If it has been a while since you’re read
those two psalms, I recommend them to you.
On the other hand, there are commentators who point out that while
Psalm 19 is general in its nature, David’s prayer for cleansing from ‘hidden
faults’ and protection from presumptuous sins is appropriate at any stage of
the believer’s life. These theologians argue that David could have written it after
Bathsheba as a mature reflection on the importance of God’s Word in guarding a
person from sin. In other words, David could have been asking God to keep him
from the kind of presumptuous sins into which he fell.
If you remember Solomon’s book of Ecclesiastes, he did something
similar. The first eleven chapters record his great regret and disappointment
with his life, despite his vast wealth and power. All of it, he repeatedly
admitted, was worthless vanity. And I’m sure he could never forget how his
foreign wives led him away from God and into unspeakable idolatry.
No wonder, then, that at the end of his life he wrote these words
of counsel and warning to those who would come after him: “Remember also
your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the
years draw near when you will say, “I have no delight in them” . . . The
conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His
commandments, because this applies to every person. For God
will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is
good or evil. (Ecclesiastes 12)
So yes, it is reasonable to think that David could have written
this 19th psalm as a mature man, having learned the hard lesson, as Jeremiah
would later write: “The heart
is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can
understand it?” Jeremiah 17:9
But whether David wrote this psalm before or after his horrible
moral failure with Bathsheba, the psalm holds an important lesson we all must
learn:
If it was written BEFORE Bathsheba and Uriah, then Christian –
beware. Don’t think for a moment you could not fall into sin – even terrible
sin – as David fell. “Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit
before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18) “Evil people are proud and arrogant,
but sin is the only crop they produce.” (Proverbs 21:4, Contemporary
English Version)
It is worth noting at this point what St Paul wrote about the
disciple named Demas. The man started well. He even joined Paul in some of his evangelistic
ministries. But something
happened to Demas along the way, and he turned from Christ. Paul tells us in 2
Timothy 4:10 “Demas, having
loved this present world, has deserted me and gone
to Thessalonica.”
We can also learn the lesson about starting well
but finishing poorly from the Christians in Laodicea. At one time they were a
vibrant community for Christ, but something obviously went wrong with them
which called for a stinging rebuke from the Lord Jesus: “I know your deeds,
that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So
because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of
My mouth. Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need
of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor
and blind and naked.” (Revelation 3:15-17)
We should make the same cautionary warning about
starting well but finishing poorly as we look at the Christians in Ephesus and in
the other churches listed in those first two chapters of the book of Revelation.
David
asked an honest question, “Who can discern his [own] errors?” He knew his heart
better than most people, including those in church pews, know their own hearts.
David knew – as we ALL must know if we are to ever mature in our faith – he knew
how adept he was at hiding his sins from himself. No wonder he prayed: Acquit
me of hidden faults. Also keep back Your
servant from presumptuous sins; Let them not rule over me.”
Part
of the lyrics of the hymn ‘Come Thou Font of Every Blessing” speaks volumes of
warning to my heart, and I hope it will speak volumes to yours as well: “Prone
to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.”
If
nothing else, that confession acknowledges how easy it is for anyone – even the
‘Davids’ of the Church – how easy it is to drift from the path God set us on
when He transferred us from the domain of Satan and into the kingdom of Christ
when we were born again. And unless you and I admit to God our spiritual
weaknesses, we will always be at risk of moral failure. As the apostle Paul
warns us: 1 Corinthians 10:12 “Let him who thinks he stands take heed
that he does not fall.”
Why
are we so able to hide our sins from ourselves? And why do we so often choose
to minimize our sins – the so-called big sins and little (venial) sins – any of
which and all of which sent Jesus to that cross to atone for what we’ve done?
Why?
In a word, ‘Pride.’ Either we’re embarrassed by what we did, or we convince
ourselves the sin is not really that bad.’ Or we simply don’t want to change.
That’s
the reason it took me as long as it did to come to faith. I didn’t want to
change. Some of you might remember my story, but for the sake of those here who
haven’t heard it, let me briefly retell it.
I
was 20 years old and stopped at a traffic light in my hometown. While I waited
for it to turn green, a thought dropped into my mind: What if there is a God? Surprised
by the question, I considered the possibility for a few moments – but then
suddenly realized that if God existed, I’d have to change my ‘sex-drugs-and rock
and roll lifestyle.’ And I did not want to change. So as the light turned green,
I told myself, “There is no God.”
Before
you came to Christ, did you do something similar? Did you reject the idea of
God’s existence seen so clearly in His general revelation of creation? Or did
you reject the inerrancy, infallibility, and full divine inspiration of the
Bible – God’s special revelation – so you could continue to live as you chose?
Yes,
as David rightly asked, “Who can discern his errors” when we are so adept at
self-deception?
So, it is reasonable to believe David wrote this psalm prior to
his sin with Bathsheba. But on the other hand, it’s just as reasonable to
believe David wrote this psalm after his moral failure because – and
this is the other lesson for you and me – because he recognized that because of
his sin nature, sin still lurked in his soul.
If you remember, the apostle Paul recognized that distressing reality
within himself. Listen to what he wrote to the Christians in Rome: (Romans
7:19-25a) “For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the
very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not
want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find
then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For
I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I
see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against
the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which
is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the
body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus
Christ our Lord!”
If David wrote this psalm after his failure with Bathsheba,
he did so because that awful moral failure reminded him that though he wants to
follow God’s commandments, there still remains something sinister in his flesh,
something evil that could nearly seamlessly overtake him again if he was
not alert to that potential.
And Christian – there is something sinister in your flesh and in mine
as well that can just as seamlessly overtake us if we do not remain alert to
that potential. I often rebuke myself when I recognize how EASILY I can begin
to drift from holy thoughts and words and yes, even acts.
May the Holy Spirit help us all to stay alert to ourselves! To stay
alert to temptations that come to us through the eye-gate, the ear-gate, the
flesh-gate. To stay alert and flee every temptation. To turn off the questionable
television show; To not participate in gossip, however ‘juicy’ the gossip might
be. To not let a spirit of unforgiveness rest in our heart.
For good reason Paul wrote: “Let the peace of Christ rule
in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body;
and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell
within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one
another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with
thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or
deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks
through Him to God the Father. (Colossians 3:15-17)
Christian,
please heed this warning: If we live in willful ignorance of the ever-present
danger of drifting from God’s commandments, we are at great risk of falling
hard and painfully. That’s why it is so very necessary and critical to our
maturity in Christ to ask God to make us aware of our sins – the big, the
small, the in-between. How else can we be rid of the sins which so easily
entangle us? As the hymn writer prayed, so ought we often pray: “Just as I
am and waiting not to rid my soul of one dark blot, to Thee whose blood can
cleanse each spot, O Lamb of God, I come, I come.”
David prayed – as should every Christian – “Who can discern his
errors? Acquit me of hidden faults. Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous
sins; Let them not rule over me; Then I will be blameless, And I
shall be acquitted of great transgression.
He then closed his psalm with the same words I will now close this
message, and may our God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, by the mercy and
the power of the Holy Spirit, make these words true for us as well:
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be
acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.”
