From Agony To Alleluia: The Blessedness Of A Forgiven Soul Series

Introduction: The Heaviest Burden

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, what is the heaviest thing you have ever carried? Some of us might think of a physical load-moving furniture, carrying heavy equipment. Others might think of an emotional burden-the weight of grief, the strain of a difficult decision, the anxiety of an uncertain future. These are heavy things, indeed.

But the testimony of Scripture, and the testimony of King David in this powerful psalm, is that there is no burden heavier, no weight more crushing, than the burden of unconfessed sin. It is a spiritual weight that presses down not just on the soul, but on the mind and even on the body. Psalm 32 is a Maschil-a psalm of instruction. It is David's personal testimony, written, many scholars believe, after his soul-crushing silence following his sin with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah. It was a year of secret agony, a year of pretending all was well while his soul was rotting from the inside. This morning, David invites us to learn from his pain and from his deliverance. He lays out for us a divine map that leads from the desolate wilderness of concealed sin to the glorious promised land of forgiveness and joy. We will walk this path with him in three stages:

1. The Agony of a Guilty Conscience (vv. 3-4)

2. The Action of a Grieving Heart (vv. 1-2, 5)

3. The Acclamation of a Grateful Soul (vv. 6-11)

I. The Agony of a Guilty Conscience (vv. 3-4)

David begins his instruction not with the joy of forgiveness, but with the horror that precedes it. He wants us to feel the full weight of the problem before we can truly appreciate the solution. Look at verses 3 and 4:

"When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah."

Notice the paradox: "When I kept silence..." He was silent about his sin. He put on the kingly robes, he judged the people, he went through the religious motions. He refused to confess to God, perhaps even to himself. But this external silence produced an internal "roaring all the day long." This is the groan of a soul in torment. It is the sound of a man at war with himself, the scream of a conscience that will not be silenced. This internal agony had devastating physical consequences. David says, "my bones waxed old." This is not the normal aging process. This is a spiritual osteoporosis, a deep, internal decay. He felt ancient and brittle, crushed from the inside out by the weight of his guilt. And what was the source of this pressure? He tells us: "For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me." This is the convicting hand of a loving God. It is not the blow of a judge, but the pressing hand of a Father, pleading with His child to come home. God loved David too much to let him be comfortable in his sin. He applied a relentless, loving pressure, day and night, reminding him that something was terribly wrong. The result of this divine pressure and internal roaring was a complete spiritual dehydration. "My moisture is turned into the drought of summer." All his vitality, his joy, his spiritual life-sap had evaporated. He was a barren wasteland, a cracked and parched desert. There is no joy in the Lord when you are hiding sin from the Lord. There is no peace. There is only a dry, weary, agonizing existence.

And then David writes that one powerful word: "Selah." Pause. Stop. Think about this. Meditate on this misery. Do you know this feeling? Do you know the heavy hand of God? Do you feel that spiritual drought? David says, "Pause and recognize this agony for what it is: the fruit of unconfessed sin."

II. The Action of a Grieving Heart (vv. 1-2, 5)

After showing us the depths of his misery, David shows us the way out. And the way out begins with a beautiful declaration of the destination. He starts with the blessing to motivate us to take the necessary step. Look at verses 1 and 2:

"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."

The word "Blessed" here is the Hebrew word Ashre. It means "O, the happiness! O, the deep fortune!" This is the state every human soul longs for. And David describes this blessedness in three magnificent ways, showing us the totality of God's forgiveness.

* "Transgression is forgiven." The Hebrew word for forgiven, nasa, means to be lifted away, to be carried off. Think of the scapegoat on the Day of Atonement, carrying the sins of the people into the wilderness. When God forgives, He lifts the burden from our shoulders and carries it away.