Forgiveness As a Refuge (04/13/2003)

Psalm 32 and the Two Views of Forgiveness

If you'd turn there with me, Psalm chapter 32, we'll finish our study of forgiveness this morning. We've been talking about the great themes of salvation and all that Jesus Christ has accomplished for us in his finished work and his continuing work on our behalves, and we've worked our way to this beautiful study of forgiveness.

Let's pray and we'll begin this morning's message. Father, we thank you for the majestic words in that hymn this morning. We thank you for the word of God that you've given us to study. We thank you for your hand upon this world in every detail, holding all things together, moving all things in your perfect direction.

We thank you for the safety of our POWs that were returned to us safely. We thank you for the way that your hand is in the midst of all that seems to be chaos to us over there. We know that you're in complete control.

Lord, we read many scriptures about the end times, and we know that the focus will be in that very part of the world. And so we watch, Father, we watch with eyes that from time to time look up, knowing that you're coming soon.

Lord, we ask you to bless us at this time with the study of your word, that your spirit might teach us what you would have us to learn. Your spirit might move our hearts where you wish to and how you wish to.

We ask it in Jesus' name, amen. Psalm 32, 1, a psalm of David. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.

Positional Forgiveness and Imputation

We've gone through these concepts of forgiveness, and if you remember, there are two types of forgiveness taught in the Bible. The first, we call it positional forgiveness, to give the theological term, but what it means is it's forgiveness from God's point of view in the heavenlies.

And from that point of view, your sin has been removed as far as the east is from the west. And really, your sins were in Jesus Christ when he was on the cross that day, and God has accounted you as if you have the righteousness of Jesus, just as he accounted Jesus as if he had your sins.

And that's called imputation. And it's an amazing thing that David from the Old Testament understood this New Testament concept. It really wasn't revealed fully until the New Testament. When David says, blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, that's what God was talking about through David.

Yes, if you look at yourselves in time, we know that we sin from time to time. We know we're not supposed to. We know that we really don't want to, but we do sin from time to time. And David is saying, blessed is the man who, even though he knows that's true, also knows it's true that from the heavenly viewpoint, God does not impute that sin to you any longer.

Now, that's an amazing truth, but we have this truth of positional forgiveness. You could look at it from the point of view of a family that a child, even if he disobeys the parents, he never ceases to be the child of the parents.

Positionally, he is in that household when he obeys, but he's also in that household when he disobeys. So that's the way we discuss forgiveness in those types of verses. There are other verses in the Bible that discuss what we call experiential forgiveness.

Confession and Experiential Forgiveness

That brings us from the heavenlies back down, putting our feet on the ground, and we're walking through time. And in time, we know that even though every sin we will ever do, you see, Jesus, when our sins were in his body, we weren't born yet.

So our future sins were in him as well. Those are gone from God's viewpoint. But we know that as we're still walking through this timeline until we go to meet him, as we're still walking from time to time, we still sin.

And so from the viewpoint of man's mind, from our psychological viewpoint, we need a way to deal with that sin, and God's given us a way. When you go down to Psalm 32, verse 3, it begins to talk about that.

When I kept silence, my bones wax old. It begins to talk about how we have a need, a human need, to confess our sins. Just as a little child, even though on the one hand it's true that he can sin, doesn't matter how many times he sins against the family, he's still a child of that family.

He does not leave the family. That's true. But isn't it also true that he needs to have a method to restore fellowship with the father in the family? They may go back and have a spanking, but he needs to say, I'm sorry, I know I did wrong, Daddy, and then hug and make up and go on as if it never happened.

The child needs that. And I'd have to say some of us fathers need that sometimes, too. God has ordained that, not that he needs it. He knows we need it, but he has ordained it. And it is a great part of this, this forgiveness.

When I kept silence, my bones wax old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night, thy hand was heavy upon me. That's the way it feels if we have sinned that we have not confessed yet. God's hand is heavy upon us.

My moisture is turned into the drought of summer. It's like a dry desert we walk in as long as we have unconfessed sins. I need all the adults to understand this, but I certainly need the children to understand this, too.

That if you do something that you know is wrong and your conscience is burning inside of you, the way to deal with it is to get away from everybody, get alone and pray and say, Lord, I know I just did wrong, and name the sin you did to him.

That's not easy to do, but do it and agree with him that it's wrong. And you know what? You can walk from that place and put it behind you and walk forward. That's what David is talking about here. I acknowledged my sin unto thee.

You see, that's confession. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. It's interesting that he says, when I confessed it, you forgave it.

But a couple of verses earlier, he said, you never imputed it to me. You see, David understands the divine viewpoint, but he lives in the human viewpoint. Isn't that interesting? That's how we ought to be.

We ought to understand the sovereignty of God, because that brings us the only peace we can have in this world. But we ought to walk as if we need to confess sins when we do the sins. We ought to walk as if we need to pray, as if we can move God with our prayers, even though we know that God has already seen everything, and you're not really going to change God from the heavenly viewpoint.

We need to walk as if we're a child asking our Father a request. Now, we understand we shouldn't pray anything unless the Holy Spirit moves our heart to pray. God will not answer any such fleshly, carnal prayer.

But as the Holy Spirit moves us, we ought to have our heart into it. We ought to be in this timeline as if a little child coming to a father, sitting on his knee and requesting something that the child already knows he wants.

The father thinks he's just coming because he wants to love on you. How many of you have experienced that? The child comes in, he's got that in his eye, and he's going to come sit on your lap. You're going, oh, isn't this great?

They don't do this as much. They're getting older, and they wait about 30 seconds and say, Dad, could I have... That's how we ought to approach prayer from the human viewpoint. Now, same way with confession.

We know full well that if we are born again today, those of us who know we're born again know that we have no sin upon us. For God has not imputed our sins to us. He imputed our sins to Jesus, and that's why Jesus died and paid for those sins.

He has imputed his righteousness to us. We stand before God in the righteousness of Jesus, and even though we know that, we still, when we do sin, we ought to come before God and admit it to him, and confess it to him, and acknowledge sins unto him.

We've discussed some of this. I'm just reviewing a little bit here. We then go into verse 7 here in Psalm 32. David now goes... He started in the heavenly viewpoint. He came down to earth. Now he's going back up to the heavenly, because that's where it's all based.

He says, Thou art my hiding place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble. Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. We see three concepts here. Hidden in Christ, preserved from trouble, and delivered.

Hidden in Christ, Preserved, and Delivered

Now, what we have to understand is there's a curious connection here between our forgiveness and this sovereignty of God aspect of the fact that God is in control of us, and he works within us. He is always doing a work.

He didn't just save us and then stop and see what we would do. He saved us, and now he continues to work in us all the time. There is a way in which we could say we are saved, but we are still being saved.

That's the present tense of salvation. There's a way we could say we shall be saved. That's our glorification, when our body, this physical body is glorified. So we have a past, present, future tense of salvation, and we look at this.

David comes back to the divine viewpoint, and he says, Listen, I know that I am forgiven. I know I need to confess my sins, but even beyond that, I know that I'm really hidden in Christ. I will confess my sins, but I know it's not my confessing of them that causes me to be saved.

It's the fact that I am saved that causes me to want to confess them. Do you see how people can get the cart before the horse so often in theology? Above it all, David says, I am hidden in Christ. Colossians 3 .1 says, If you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. He also says, Thou shalt preserve me from trouble. Psalm 37 .28 says, For the Lord loveth judgment, and forsaketh not his saints.

They are preserved forever. But the seed of the wicked shall be cut off. God's saints don't have to confess their sins in order to be preserved. They are preserved. They're preserved by God. They're preserved because of the blood of Jesus and nothing more.

But it's still appropriate for us to confess sin. That's why I think David sandwiched this idea of confession and acknowledging sin in between two sovereignty of God passages where he says your sin's already gone.

He wants us to understand both points of view. He does not want us to think for one minute that we have to confess in order to stay saved. Now there are many misunderstandings that can come into play with this idea of forgiveness and with the idea of confession.

And God straightens them out if you just read the word. He puts all the information we need to keep it balanced and keep it right. We're going to see more of that in just a few moments. So we are hidden, we are preserved, and what about this great deliverance that we have?

We read some beautiful verses from the Psalms about that last time. I want to summarize that. Turn with me to Colossians 1, verse 12. Keep a hand there in Psalm 32. That's where we're really preaching from.

But this is a beautiful passage in the New Testament that talks about this deliverance that is connected to our forgiveness. You cannot disconnect forgiveness from the fact that God has delivered us from all sin.

Colossians 1, verse 12 Giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Now this little passage, I'm going to read four or five verses. It really summarizes a lot of the concepts we've already studied so far in this lesson on the finished work of Jesus.

It will discuss the eternal plan of God. It will discuss redemption. It will discuss reconciliation, propitiation, but also forgiveness. He says giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us fit. Meet means fit.

He has made us fit to be partakers. You see where the sovereignty of God comes in? The Bible always looks up first. It always looks from God's viewpoint first. Then it will come down and give us the human viewpoint because that's where we live.

But it's God that made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance. We didn't do that ourselves. I don't care if you confess sin or forget to confess sin or remember to confess sin. You can't make yourself fit for heaven.

The confession of sin makes you feel better on the earth and also fit for service perhaps, but it doesn't make you saved or more saved or less saved. You see? And he points this out. It's God who makes us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in life who has delivered us from the power of darkness.

It's God who delivered us from the power of darkness, not we ourselves. Not any work that we do including confession of sin. Confession of sin does not deliver us from anything that has to do with the powers of darkness.

God does that. God does that on our behalf. Jesus did that on the cross. It's his work that delivers us. Who hath delivered us? Who is the father? The father has delivered us from the power of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of his dear son.

We were in the wrong language. We were born in the language of the world in the bad sense. And God has translated us into the heavenly language. He's made us to be fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in life by translating us into the kingdom of his dear son in whom we have redemption through his blood.

We've covered that theme but look, it's tied in directly with forgiveness of sins. We have the redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sins. You see how this is forgiveness from the eternal viewpoint.

From God's viewpoint our forgiveness is tied with the redemption which means we were bought with the price of Jesus' blood and it's finished. It doesn't have to do with us confessing or not confessing.

That's God's viewpoint. It's tied in with the blood. It's tied in with the finished work of redemption set free by paying a price. The price that was paid was the blood of Jesus who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature for by him were all things created that are in heaven that are in earth, visible, invisible, whether they be thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, all things were created by him but also for him.

He is before all things and by him he holds all things together. That's what it means, all things consist. He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead that in all things he might have the preeminence for it pleased the father that in him should all fullness dwell.

And look at this having made peace through the blood of his cross by him to reconcile all things into himself. By him I say whether they be things in earth or things in heaven and you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works yet now hath he reconciled.

It's all past tense. It's finished. He has reconciled you in the body of his flesh through death. It's the finished work of Jesus Christ to present you holy and unblameable that means totally forgiven holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight.

Now what's very interesting to me is the next verse, the first word in the next verse because most Baptists love to put a period after verse 22 and stop right there, close the Bible and preach the sermon.

And I would prefer to do that myself quite frankly but all this means is we're shifting to the human viewpoint now. We've been in the divine viewpoint from verse 12 all the way through verse 22 and now we're shifting to the human viewpoint we're shifting not from God being the judge but from how your fellow man judges us and it says you will be holy, unblameable, unreprovable in his sight if you continue in the faith grounded and settled and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye have heard and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven where have I fallen made minister.

Now some would take that and pervert it and say that that means well only if you do good works are you unreprovable and unblameable in his sight someday that's not what it's saying what it's saying is if you have verse 12 through verse 23 applied to your life by faith if you have Jesus Christ in your heart if you have his blood upon your life then you will continue in the faith grounded and settled but there are those among us who profess to be saved, who profess to be a Christian who don't have it because there are still those among us who are either religious or depending on works or depending on some good thing that they're going to do or depending on somehow pleasing God for their salvation and this verse is put there for them because you know what's true of them?

Every time they can only go a season and then they go right back to the pig's lock. They only they make a profession of faith they may get baptized and they may flourish for many days, oh just have the great personality, the great testimony just bubbly for Jesus and all of a sudden you never see him again and the next thing you go a year later you look out there and they're down at the beer joint or they're off somewhere just living for the devil and you say my soul they didn't continue you know why they didn't continue?

Jesus tells us why. He said for they have no root yet they sprung up quickly like a seed that falls on soil that has a rock underneath it and it can't get any root but it springs up quickly but as soon as the sun comes out it scorches it and it dies for it has no root.

There are those like that among us that's why God gives us verses like verse 23. It's not to say that you as the born again true children of God have to worry about whether you will continue or not. Listen, how can you believe that when you have thousands of verses like the verses that say that God continues the work in you that he began and you have all the verses that says God worketh in you and all the verses that say just as you were saved so walk it's by faith and how could you believe it means that if you read the verses right above it from 12 to verse 22. 22 where it says that you're saved by redemption by the blood of Jesus not by anything you do but what it shows clearly is that those that are saved will continue in faith they will be grounded and settled they will not be moved away from their hope no matter what trials and tribulations come.

I'll give you a verse to prove that if you want to see one. I know I don't have to prove that I'm preaching to the choir this morning on this issue but Hebrews chapter 10 verse 38 and 39 very interesting passage you should mark the biggest star you've got in your bible should be beside Hebrews 10 38 and 39 because the first time someone tries to tell you that Colossians chapter 1 verse 23 means that you could lose your salvation.

Take them to Hebrews 10 38 and 39 and you can teach them because they are foolish. You don't have to tell them that but you can know that they are anyone who comes to you and tries to argue with you that you could lose your salvation is a fool and you can know that but you don't have to tell that to them to their face.

All you have to do is read Hebrews 10 38 and 39 and explain to them because what they're doing is they're living by sight not by faith. See God has said that he keeps his children. He says of all whom he hath given me I shall lose nothing but shall raise it up the last day.

And 50 ,000 other verses I could read that's my favorite subject is eternal security. I could go on and on with verses. I won't do that this morning but it's there. But rather than living by faith of what God says in those verses there are those who live by sight.

Here's what they see. They'll come to church. They'll see somebody come up give a testimony they just got baptized. They come give a flowery testimony a strong testimony of power. Usually they'll mention all the gory details of their sins.

And then they'll come out and say but God's changed me. And then six months later they're out living for the devil. And that person sees that and by his eye he says therefore he lost his salvation. Hebrews 10 38 deals with that very issue and look what it says.

Now the just shall live by faith. But if any man draw back it implies that some men do draw back. Some men do give a profession and then draw back and go live like they used to. If any man draw back my soul shall have no pleasure in him.

And this is God talking. But look at the next verse. But we this is the author of Hebrews talking we believe it's probably apostle Paul. But we are not of them who draw back into perdition. Perdition means utter destruction.

Talking about hell we are not of that group that draws back to hell but we are of them that believe into the saving of the soul. There are two groups even in churches there's God's seed Satan's seed. If you want to put it that way there are the elect and the non elect.

If you want to put it that way both biblical ways to put it there are goats and sheep. If you want to put it that way if you want to put it that way there are three groups. There are lost goats lost sheep and saved sheep.

Unless you study you don't know the difference. You'll be confused by your sight. But listen those around us are confused. We don't need to be so we see that very clearly. God has in fact delivered us who hath delivered us from the power of darkness.

How could you read Colossians 1 .13 that says he has already in the Greek tense past tense. He's already delivered us from the power of darkness. He has already translated us into the kingdom of his son.

And then read verse 23 to say if you continue in the faith grounded and settled means you're going to lose. That doesn't mean that. It does mean we are delivered from the power of darkness. 1st Thessalonians 1 .10 says.

And to wait for his son from heaven who hath who he raised from the dead. Even Jesus which delivered us from the wrath to come we're delivered from the wrath to come. Not if anything there's no if in that verse 2nd Timothy 4 .18 and the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work.

Listen. If 1st Thessalonians 1 .10 says he has delivered me 2nd Timothy 4 .18 says he shall deliver me. Listen. I'm covered on both ends. And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work. And will shall.

That's in the future. We don't have to worry. Say okay. I'm up. I'm okay up till now. This is church of Christ doctrine. I'm okay to now. He's forgiven my past sins. But boy I gotta worry about tomorrow I could fall.

It's like God be surprised if I went out there tomorrow and did something. You know why would God save you in the first place. If he saw out in the future you were going to sin. And if that were a problem that's not a problem.

You know why. It's not a problem. Because it's paid for once and shall never be paid for again. And everyone for whom that was paid will be found in heaven. I like this. And to wait for his son from heaven.

This is 1st Thessalonians 1 .10 whom he hath raised from the dead. Even Jesus which delivered us past tense. And 2nd Timothy 4 .18. And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work that goes out into the future and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom.

That's all the way up until I'm there. To whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. We will not get the glory for having kept ourselves saved. You can say well I lived this verse 23 up here in Colossians 1.

I continued I worked hard at continuing. I continued in the faith grounded and settled. And didn't go back to that pig slop. So I'm here. I'm here. Aren't you proud of me. That won't happen. Because what will happen is it will be shown that we try to go back to the pig slop a few times of our own will.

But God never let us fall. It says no they fall. They shall not be utterly cast down for the Lord upholdeth them in his hand. It's God that will get the glory when we get there. Because we would have lost it if we could have lost it our salvation.

That is. But he won't let us because we've been his children from before anything was made that is made and God doesn't let one of his children go to hell. I can't understand why the world doesn't understand.

I mean I understand the world. Why doesn't the world of Christianity understand it. How can you have so many denominations in this very city that preach that you can lose your salvation. It is sad but it's foolishness.

And there is no excuse for it. Hebrews 2 14. It's because they don't understand forgiveness. David in the Old Testament before Jesus ever came understood it better than the Church of Christ friend better than the first Pentecostal friend better than the Methodist friend.

David understood it better before Jesus ever came. Read Psalm 32. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not sin. How could you go to hell if you don't have any sin in your account. All you have is the righteousness of Jesus in your account makes me glad makes me glad.

We have a heritage of people who believe Jesus. Blood saves Jesus blood is all sufficient. Hebrews 2 14. For as much then as the children are partakers of the flesh and blood he also himself likewise took part of the same that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death that is the devil.

How can he take a saint to hell if he's destroyed. Satan is destroyed. The same death that redeemed us destroyed Satan. And listen to this not only is Satan destroyed the one who has the power of death that is the devil.

But and delivered them through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Jesus Christ not only destroyed the devil but he delivered us all in the same blow. We are delivered. 2 Peter 2 7.

He even delivered just Lot. You remember Lot. Lot didn't have the most saintly lifestyle. Lot did not perform as many good works as some would like to see. Lot would be one of those that say well I don't know about him.

He doesn't really look safe. It proves salvation is not by works. It proves that we're not the judge of who is saved God is. It also proves that if you were of the elect and Jesus died for you you're going to be saved.

You may be a disobedient child but you're in the family. Listen. How many of you have more than one children. Raise your hand. Ok. Were they all the same would you say. Maybe some of them have a nature that just slightly tends to obey more than some of the others.

Ok. Do you love the one that obeys more than most. Tell me truthfully. Shake your head one way or the other. If you have more than one child one obeys the other. One tends to get in trouble. Do you love the one that obeys the most.

Shake your head. I want to see. Oh they're going this way. Why is that. Because it's not because of what they do that makes you love them. It's because of who you are. You're the mom. It's not because of what you do that makes God love you.

It's because of who he is. He's your father. He knew you before the foundation of the world. If you have received Jesus Christ into your heart as your personal lord and savior. Or if you're sitting here this morning and you haven't but you're worried about it and you'd like to and you're thinking about it.

God knew you before the foundation of the world and he's your father. And if that's the case he'll deliver you just whether you're like Lot or whether you're like Abraham. You think about that now. That's a powerful statement.

You don't have to be like Abraham to be delivered and be God's child. You could be like Lot. And I'm not advocating that. But they're all degrees all in between. I'll tell you this. You're like whoever God made you to be because he wanted you to be that way.

Did you know. God wanted Lot to be Lot. I'm not saying Lot wasn't responsible for his bad choices. We're all responsible for that. But God wanted Abraham and a Lot. Ha ha ha. 2 Peter 2 7. God delivered just Lot who was vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked people that lived around him for that righteous man God calls him a righteous man.

How can he call Lot. Do you remember when they tried to the evil man tried to catch the angel to keep him out from preaching Lot solved that problem. If you're saved by two virgin daughters just do whatever you want to.

That's wisdom. I don't even I can't comprehend that. I mean I just that is far beyond my ability to comprehend how any man in any society whether that's a social I don't know what that was. That's the devil.

If you ask me the devil in Lot you know. And God calls him a righteous man. Verse 8. For this righteous man dwelling among them. You know why. Because David said blessed is the man unto whom his sins are not imputed.

God from the heavenly viewpoint looked down at Lot and saw him as Jesus. He saw him all dressed up in Jesus. This righteous man dwelling among them in seeing and hearing vexed his righteous soul. How do we as humans even know that Lot was saved.

Well he didn't live right. But you know what we can tell. He was not at peace with it. You see if you get saved you may still go out and sin. But you won't like it anymore. Oh you may like it for a moment but two seconds after it you won't like it.

And thinking about the next time you say I'll never do that again because I didn't like it. You will not like it. You'll be vexed by sin. A lost person is not a lost sheep and a lost goat both love sin.

I suspect the lost sheep probably doesn't love it quite as much as the lost goat. I can't prove that one. But I'll tell you this a saved sheep hates sin. He hates to be in the mud. And if he gets in it he wants to get out of it as quickly as he can.

That's why God gives us confession on the human level. The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations. That's what it says about Lot. You know how he delivered Lot. He sent angels and he went and grabbed him and took him out physically when he didn't want to go.

He delivered this man out of temptations. And God knows how to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished. That is an equal truth. Now what have we seen this morning. We see that God that David in Psalm 32 understands that the man is blessed whose transgression is forgiven.