PBC July 23, 2000
INTRODUCTION
(attention)
I have been preaching a series of messages on our emotions. So far I have preached on depression, stress, loneliness, and bitterness. This morning I'm going to be preaching on the emotion of guilt. I'm going to be dealing with guilt this morning. So I've entitled my message today, "A Guilty Conscience."
(text)
Thank you for bringing your Bibles today. Please be finding Psalms 32. I want to tell you about a man who the Bible said loved God so much that he was a man after God's own heart. He was the king of all Israel, the most powerful man who ever lived and yet he was a man who almost became mortally wounded by the dirty knife of guilt. Psalm 32 is the Psalm of David and I want you to follow me this morning as I read to you Psalm 32.
(explaining guilt)
When you think about all the emotions I have dwelt with in these series of messages; depression, stress, loneliness, and bitterness, guilt ranks right up there with the rest of them as a very deadly emotion. Guilt can make a man afraid of his own shadow. British author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created the well-known character Sherlock Holmes. Let me tell you something he did one time to show you just how powerful guilt really is. He wrote an anonymous telegram to 12 of his best friends. It was a practical joke. In the telegram he wrote, "Flee at once, all has been discovered." In 24 hours, all 12 left the country. It's amazing, the power of guilt. The worse trip you will ever take is a guilt trip. It will take you farther than you want to go. It will keep you longer than you want to stay. And it will cost you more than you want to pay.
I found out something this week I thought was very interesting. I found out that our federal government operates what they call a conscience fund? Yea, a conscience fund. In 1811, someone who has obviously defrauded the government out of some money sent them an anonymous check for $5 to cover that debt. Well, someone in Washington got a bright idea about setting up a conscience fund for people to send in money who have guilty consciences. Since 1811, the federal government has collected $3.5 million just in that conscience fund. In 1986, they took up $390,000, an all-time high and one man alone sent in a $190,000 anonymously. I believe we ought to set up a conscience fund in our church!
(textual background)
Here's the background for our text today. David committed a horrible sin and it all started with sexual lust. He looked, he lusted, he acted on his lust, and he sinned. This sin lead him to lose the joy of his salvation.
David sinned the sin of adultery. He committed adultery with another man's wife and her name was Bathesheba. Number 32:23 rang true for David for the Bible says, "Be sure, your sin will find you out."(Numbers 32:23) And for David it did. His sin found him out. Bathesheba got pregnant and he scrabbled to cover it up. So he had her husband Uriah murdered on the battlefield. David thought by killing off a man, he could cover up his sin and put it behind him. But there was one problem. The gnawing tooth of guilt began to eat away at David's soul like an emotional cancer. All of a sudden, David had trouble sleeping, eating, and reading the Scriptures. All of a sudden, the heavens turned to brass and David could no longer pray. David felt guilty. The reason David felt guilty was because David was guilty.
(transition\need)
David did overcome his guilt. He overcame it the same way you and I can overcome it. Perhaps you're here this morning and you have a guilty conscience. The gnawing tooth of guilt is eating away at your soul like an emotional cancer. Well if you do, I'm going to show you from the Word of God how deal with it.
Division #1 I want you to see this morning the BURDEN OF CONCEALED SIN.
A. I want to show you in verse 3 where David's problem really began. David said in verse 3, "When I kept silent..." Now, here is where David's problem really began. Not when he got Bethesheba pregnant but when he tried to cover it up.
Now isn't that the way we are alot of times when we mess up, when we do something wrong. Our first impulse is to sweep it under the rug and hope nobody notices it. If you don't believe that, you ask Richard Nixon. It was Watergate that got him into trouble. It was his attempt to cover it up that got him into trouble. If he had not have tried to cover it up, he would have probably finished out his term.
You see, when we sin, here's what we do. We will just kind of brush it off by saying something like, "Well, everybody's doing it." Or we'll say something like, "Well, what I do is nobody's business." Or what we'll try to do is blame it on somebody else. If we do somebody wrong, we'll say, "Well, he had it coming," "or "they deserved it." Our attitude often times is,"Well, if his face hadn't gotten in the way of my fist, then he wouldn't have gotten hit." That's our attitude. We're like a little boy I read about one time who got in a fight with one of his classmates at school. The teacher saw it and came running over to break it up and she said, "What's going on here?" He said, "Well, it all started when he hit me back." Now, we've got an attitude in our hearts that it's always somebody else's fault, somebody else's problem, and we try to sweep that sin under the rug.
Well, for whatever reason, instead of coming clean and confessing the sin and dealing with it, David tried to hide that sin. He just kept his mouth shut.
Now look in verse 3 and I want you to notice what unconfessed sin did to David's life.
1. First of all, it depleted his strength. Look in verse 3 again, "When I kept silent, my bones grew old Though my groaning all the day long." David was absolutely miserable and David should have been miserable. Do you want me to tell you why? You see the most miserable man alive is not a man who doesn't know God, the most miserable man alive is the man that knows God and who is out of fellowship with Him. David once had a hotline to heaven and now the line has been disconnected. He tells us here that "my bones grew old...". His guilt had weakened his body and zapped his strength. His body began to hurt so much that he said, "I couldn't even sleep at night. I would just groan and moan and ache and hurt all the day long."
I am told that doctors now know that there is such a thing as psychosomatic illness. That is illness where the psyche, the mind, the soul make the soma, the body, sick. That's why we call it psycho, mind, soma, body, illness, psychosomatic illness, when the mind makes the body sick. Doctors estimate that up to 80% of all illnesses are psychosomatic. and you see, that's what sin does and what guilt does. It can show up so many ways in your physical life. For example, it can show up in insomnia so you can't sleep. It can show up in a loss of appetite so you can't eat. It can show up in migraine headaches. It can show up in irritable dispositions. It can show up in an ulcerated stomach. David said, "This thing is physically killing me." It depleted his strength.
2. Not only did guilt deplete his strength, guilt also depressed his spirit. Look at verse 4, "For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; ..." David tells us here what the burden of unconfessed is. It is the heavy hand of a holy God. You see, if you love the Lord Jesus Christ the Bible tells us that He has us in the palm of His hands. When you sin and you try to conceal it, God put the squeeze on you. He just squeezes your life a little bit and put pressure on you until you can't help but to feel the heavy hand of a holy God. Well so of you sitting here this morning are saying, "I've been living in sin and I having felt any pressure." Then you're not saved. Let me tell you something. Don't ever brag about the fact that you are living and sin and enjoying it. That's nothing to brag about. You are in deep spiritual trouble. You know why? God will let the devil's kids get away with sin on this earth. But God will not let His children get away with it. When David sinned and David tried to conceal it, God put that heavy hand on him day and night. He couldn't get away with it. He could have traveled anywhere in the world but he couldn't get away with it. He said, "Day and night, night and day, day and night, night and day the heavy hand of God was on me."
You know why he was so miserable? Because God wanted him to be miserable. When a saved man is out of fellowship with God, he won't be happy, because God won't let him be happy. The psychological toll of guilt is an incredible force to the human consciousness. Psychologists are now treating a mental condition called PAS. It is known as post-abortion syndrome. A prominent psychologist in Virginia did a study of a group of ladies who had abortions. She discovered that out of these women who had abortions some were suffering high levels of stress. She discovered that 60% of these women who had an abortion had frequent crying, inability to communicate, sexual inhibition, suicidal tendency and increased alcohol and drug use. When she went further and did a deeper study, she discovered that 80% of these women suffered from feelings of grief, sadness, loss, depression, anger, low self-worth and guilt. There's a physical cost to guilt.
3. You know what sin did to David? It depleted his strength. It depressed his spirit. And do you know what else. It drained his soul. Look at verse 4 again. "...My vitality was turned into the drought of summer." David said, "The dirt in my heart caused a drought in my soul." Mark it down. When there's dirt in your heart, there will be drought in your soul. God had turned the showers of blessings and David's life had become a veritable desert.
(transition) There was the burden of unconfessed sins. Secondly, not only was there the burden of concealed sin, I want you to see, now, the
Division #2 THE BEAUTY OF CONFESSED SIN.
Let me give you for the next few moments a three-fold process that God used in David's life to begin the healing process from his guilt.
A. I want you to see first of all, David's conviction. Look at verse 5, "I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I have not hidden..." David finally came to the point where he had to say, "I can't take it anymore. I acknowledge my sin to You."
That should be a lesson to all of us who have a guilty conscious. You will never get rid of your guilt until you acknowledge your sin to God and you'll never acknowledge your sin to God until God convicts you of that sin. That raises a question. How was David convicted?
1. David was convicted spiritually. The Holy Spirit of God convicted him of his sin. Watch this. Pay attention right here. This is worth coming to church this morning. You really need to know the difference between Holy Spirit conviction and Satanic accusation. You really need to know when the Holy Spirit is convicting you of sin and when the devil is accusing you of sin. Now here's the difference. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin while Satan accuses us of sin. Satan will accuse you of sin already forgiven. The Holy Spirit will convict you of sin you never confessed. Satan will accuse you of sin already forgiven and the Holy Spirit will convict you of sin thats not forgiven. Listen, the Holy Spirit never digs up old dirt. Never! The Holy Spirit only digs up new dirt. I heard about a man who went to a psychologist. He said, "Man, you've got to help me with my wife." He said, "What's the matter?" He said, "Every time we get into an argument, she gets historical." He said, "You mean hysterical?" He said, "No, I mean historical. She drags up my past every time we get into an argument." And that's what the devil does. He drags up everything you have ever done. When God convicts you of a certain sin and you acknowledge it before Him. He forgives you and He forgets about it. So move on. Don't keep bring up and don't let the devil keep bring it up. It's over.
2. Not only was David convicted spiritually, he was also convicted specifically. In verse 5 David said, "I acknowledge my sin..." The word here is "sin" not "sins". It means only one sin. That's how the Holy Spirit does it. He convicts you of that a specific sin. I like what the black preacher said that I read about this week. He got up and said, "I want to be specific this morning. I'm not going to say, 'Thou shalt not steal.' I'm going to say, 'Thou shalt not steal watermelons.'" And that's what God does. That's what the Holy Spirit says. He says, "I'm going to convict you specifically."
B. Now watch this. David's conviction led to David's confession. Look in verse 5 again. He said, "...I said, "I will confess my transgressions of the LORD," And You forgave the iniquity of my sin." Confession is the only knife that can lance the boil of sin and remove the infection of guilt. Now, you say, "Well, I've done that and I still feel guilty." Maybe you don't understand what the word confession means. The word confession means more than to just admit your sin. You can still admit your sin and not confess it? There are a lot of people who plead guilty in courtrooms every day, but they don't admit they're sinful. They just try to get off with the best sentence they can. You can admit your sin and yet not confess your sin. That word "confess" means to literally agree with. You say the same thing about your sin that God says about it. And when you do that as David did, you can say with him, "And you forgave the iniquity of my sin" (verse 5).
I read about a man who came to his pastor because he had been tormented by the ghost of guilt. There was a horrible sin he had committed in his life about 35 years ago. He couldn't get it off his mind. He couldn't get it off his chest. He couldn't get it out of his heart. He came to the pastor and he said, "Pastor, guilt is killing me." He said, "Well, why do you feel guilty." He told him why he felt guilty. He said, "Have you ever confessed that sin?" He said, "I have confessed that sin a thousand times." The pastor said, "I know what you problem is." He said, "What's that?" He said, "You should have confessed it one time and thanked God 999 times that He forgave you."
(transition) You see, there's the burden of covered sin. There is the beauty of confessed sin. And I want you to see, thirdly,
Division #3 THE BLESSING OF CANCELLED SIN.
David didn't begin this Psalm on a negative note. He began it on a positive note. He doesn't start off with the burden of guilt. He starts off with the blessing of grace. In verse 1 and 2, he tell us the blessings of being forgiven. Verse 1 and 2 says, "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 deceit." David is telling us right from the start that he is happy. Do you know why he was happy? He was happy for three reasons.
1. Number one. He was happy his sin was forgiven. David said, "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,..."
2. Number two. He was happy his sin was forgotten. David said, "...whose sin is covered." What God forgives, God forgets. God says in Jeremiah 31:34 says, "...for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." You take the worse sin you have ever committed and lets say that God has forgiven you of that sin. Then one day you are bothered by it and you say to God, "God I want to talk to you about that sin." God says, "What sin, I don't know what you are talking about?"
3. He was happy his sin was forsaken. Verse 2 says, "Blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit." That word "impute" means to charge to somebody's account. You know what God does? God does two thing. He wipes the slate clean and He makes a promise that He will never charge that sin to your account again. And listen friend, that is something only God can do.
CONCLUSION
restate:
There was the burden of concealed sin. There was the beauty of confessed sin. And there was the blessing of concelled sin.
visualization:
Ernest Hemmingway wrote a short story called The Capital of the World. He tells a story about a father and his teenage son who has a strange relationship. They lived in Spain. Their relationship became strained. They had a knock-em-down, dragged-em-out argument and the son got mad and ran away from home. Well, the dad thought he'd come back, but weeks turned into months and months turned into years and his son never come home. The father began to search for that lost, rebellious son. He went all over Spain trying to find him and couldn't do it. Finally, he went to the largest city in Spain, the capital, Madrid, and he put an add in the newspaper as a last resort. He took out a full page ad. His son's name was Peco. Now, Peco in Spain is a very common name, kind of like John is in America. He took out a full page ad in the Madrid newspaper and the ad simply read, "Dear Peco, Meet me in the front of the Madrid Newspaper office tomorrow at noon. All is forgiven. I love you." The next day at noon, in the front of that newspaper, 800 Pecoes showed up looking for forgiveness.
action:
My friend, 2,000 years ago God sent a Telegram. He said, "Dear Blank, meet Me at the foot of the cross, all is forgiven." David was happy because his sin was forgiven. His sin was forgotten. And His sin was forsaken. And listen friend. You know why you have a guilty conscience this morning? It is because you have unconfessed sin in your life. If you come today and you confess, agree with God, say the same thing about you sin that God says about it. He can rid you of your guilty conscious. I don't care how horrible the sin is. God can rid you of your guilty conscious like He did David's. And He can make you happy again like He did for David by forgiving his sin, forgetting his sin, and forsaking his sin.