"Dear God,
Cover my Sins"
Psalms 32:1
"How
blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered!"
In
this passage three main activities have taken place. First, a transgression has
been committed. Someone has sinned (transgressed)
against God. This act damaged this person's relationship with God. "But
your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid
his face from you, that he will
not hear" ((Isaiah 59:1).
We read of another activity that has taken
place (verse 1). This is an act of God.
Forgiveness has been granted to the sinner. The relationship is restored
and renewed. This man is blessed. Without forgiveness this person's
relationship with God would be permanently severed and he would face eternity
alone and without God. What a blessing
forgiveness is!
A
third action is generally ignored by everyone.
This occurs between the two activities mentioned, the sin and the
forgiveness. What happened between the
sin and God's forgiveness? Did God do
something or did the sinner? The
inspired Psalmist gives us a flashback in Psalm 32.
Both God and man did something! Observe that God did not automatically
forgive this sinner. The sin was held
against the sinner and God was not happy at all with him and He demonstrated
it. "For day and night thy hand
was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer"
(verse 4 of Psalm 32). This is God's
child and God is chastising him (Hebrews 12:8).
God's hand is upon the sinning child of God.
What did man do? According to verse 3 the sinner at first
apparently did nothing. He has kept
silent about his sin. Was he hiding his
sin or just denying or ignoring what he had done? "When
I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long".
The action that made the difference is
the sinner's confession of his sin
in prayer. "I
acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid" (verse
5). The inspired writer asserts that
this is the key to God's forgiveness to the godly child of God (verse 6) when
he sins.
Paul
quoted this passage in Romans 4 and used it to discuss to Christians how
important obedience to the faith in the gospel is and its consequence of
obtaining the favor of God.
We
cannot sin against the Law of Moses for we are not under that Law (Romans 2, 3;
Colossians
If
you are a child of God, you may still sin.
The apostle John says
that if you say you don't sin, you a liar. But if we walk in the Light furnished us by
Jesus through the apostles and prophets of the New Testament, we will confess
our sins (like the Psalmist of old) and God is "faithful to forgive us our sins" (1 John 1:7ff).
Christian,
take joy! You have the access to the
greatest of blessings! Forgiveness of sins.
GW