Today, Thursday January 19
You Are My Hiding Place
Psalm 32:5-7
“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. Selah
For this cause everyone who is godly shall pray to You In a time when You may be found; Surely in a flood of great waters They shall not come near him. You are my hiding place; You shall preserve me from trouble; You shall surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah”
David begins this Psalm with praise and thanksgiving proclaiming the blessings of forgiveness (vv. 1-2). He then tells of how miserable he was when he tried for over a year to hide and cover his sin (vv. 3-4). In 2 Samuel 12, we read how the Lord eventually sent the prophet Nathan to David to confront him with his sins and bring him God's word of forgiveness.
David's confession "I have sinned against the Lord" was answered with, "The Lord also has put away your sin" (2 Sam. 12:13). The king didn't have to do penance or go on probation; all he had to do was sincerely confess his sins, and the Lord forgave him (1 John 1:9). The burden of transgression had been carried away, the debt was canceled, the twisted was made straight, and the Lord didn't put David's sins on the record.
Instead of imputing our sins, the Lord puts the righteousness of Christ on our account, and we are accepted in Him. You can read about this wonderful Biblical truth in Romans 4 and 5; 2 Corinthians 5:19-21; and Galatians 3:6. When David was confronted with his sin, he offered no excuses, he simply admitted that he had sinned and was guilty before God.
The world we live in today tries to tell us that it is wrong to make people feel guilty about anything. They say you shouldn’t feel guilty about being lazy, about being angry, about hurting others, about anything you do that is wrong. But my friend God gave us guilt as an emotion that is actually very good for us. Guilt is to the conscience what pain is to the body. When you feel pain, you know something is wrong and you need to go to the doctor or get some medicine to deal with it. Guilt tells us that something is wrong and must be made right, or things will get worse.
For this cause everyone who is godly shall pray to You In a time when You may be found (v. 6). The promise of forgiveness is for everybody. The “godly” are God’s children, His chosen ones, and we must confess our sins immediately, when we find them out, and while God may be found (Psalm 69:14; Isaiah 55:9; Proverbs 1:24-33). The waters of chastening will only get deeper and the storm increase, so don't tempt the Lord!
David exchanged hiding his sins for a hiding place in the Lord. God removed his troubles and put a wall of protection around him. Did David deserve these blessings? Of course not, and neither do we! But this is the grace of God as found in Jesus Christ our Lord. "God's kiss of forgiveness sucks the poison from the wound," wrote Alexander Maclaren, and that says it all.
This doesn't mean that David didn't suffer because of the consequences of his sins. God in His grace forgives us, but God in His government says, "You will reap what you have sown." Bathsheba conceived and gave birth to a son, but the baby died. David's son Amnon raped his half-sister Tamar (2 Sam. 13) and was slain by David's son Absalom. Then Absalom tried to seize the throne and was slain by Joab (2 Sam. 14-18). While David was dying, his son Adonijah tried to take the scepter from Solomon (1 Kings 1), and Adonijah was slain. However, David faced these calamities with God's help and lived to assemble what was needed for the temple so that Solomon, Bathsheba's second son. could build it.
After David was forgiven and restored, he went to the sanctuary to worship the Lord (2 Samuel 12:15-23), and there with the other worshipers, he was surrounded by "songs or shouts of deliverance," that is, praise to God for His mercies. That's exactly what David needed to hear! That is exactly what we too need to hear when we go to church on Sundays with other sinners who have found forgiveness!
Thank God we can be delivered from the guilt of our sin and find a hiding place in Jesus!
God bless!