Sometimes those nightmarish dreams people have actually come true. It happened to a couple from Salem, Oregon while they were on their summer vacation. They were traveling in their camper truck. The husband got so tired he decided to let his wife take over so he could get a nap. It was very hot so he took off all his clothes and stretched out on the cot. The curtains were drawn and so it was completely private. After sometime he awoke realizing the truck was stopped, and he wondered if something was wrong. What he didn't know was that his wife was in a town, and stopped at a traffic light. He opened the back door to poke his head out to see what was going on. Just as he did, the light changed, and the wife gunned the motor and the forward motion of the truck propelled him right out the back down onto the street. He yelled at his wife, but it was too late, she was well on her way, and in fact, drove 200 miles before she discovered he was not in the back.
You can imagine the man's embarrassment as he tore down the sidewalk for the nearest clothing store where he grabbed a coat off the rack. He was not very fussy about the size and fit. Adam and Eve could be naked and not ashamed, but every since they fell man has felt a need to be covered. God met the need of Adam and Eve by providing them with garments so they could face Him without shame. What is true for the body is also true for the spirit of man. It cannot stand too much exposure. It is embarrassing to have your inner life and thought exposed, for it is not always fit for public viewing, and we feel shame if our inner self is exposed.
The history of man is the history of cover-up. Much of life revolves around the covering up of the body and the soul. The clothing and cosmetic industry aid us in covering the body. We all take full advantage of these aids, but when it comes to covering the soul, so we feel secure and not ashamed, because of the defects of our soul, we are not as sure about what is most effective. There are the man made cover-ups which as varied and complicated, and there is God's method of covering which is very singular and simple.
David in verse 1 of Psa. 32 tells us right off what a blessing it is to discover God's covering for the soul that has sinned. David tells us that God's covering is forgiveness. In other words, the security blanket that enables us as sinners to feel free to approach a holy God without shame and guilt is the garment of grace called forgiveness. To be forgiven and to be covered are parallel statements in this verse, and so they mean the same thing.
This Psalm is David's song of joy, because he found forgiveness, and in spite of his great sins of adultery and murder, was still able to face God without guilt and shame. It is a song of rejoicing, because it is a song about the good news that there is a way out of life's worst messes. There is a way for the sinner to become a saint. Before we can join David in his joyful song concerning the covering of forgiveness, we must make sure we, like him, recognize and renounce the detours which he, and all sinners are tempted to take. There is another way to cover your sin. It is not with the garment of grace, but with the garment of works. It is the old do it yourself method of solving life's greatest problem-the problem of guilt. David tried it, and all of us try it, and life is as sad as it is, because it is the most common method of dealing with sin, guilt, and shame. So before we look at the covering of forgiveness, we must focus our attention on the covering of foolishness. Seeing the folly of man made methods will enable us to appreciate what God has provided in Christ.
I. THE COVERING OF FOOLISHNESS.
Believe it or not, Christian psychologists have discovered at least 37 ways that people
foolishly deal with their guilt. We just want to focus on one of the main methods so as to be aware of the fact that even we, who know of Christ and His cross, are tempted to try another way. That common way is called scapegoating. David tried this one. He called Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba, home from battle to give him a chance to sleep with his wife, and hopefully make him think that he was the one who got her pregnant. Uriah, however, was too loyal a soldier, and would not indulge in pleasure while his fellow soldiers faced the pain of the battlefield. David felt he had no alternative but to have Uriah killed. The whole account makes it clear that David was delighted with Uriah's death. It was as if he was the whole problem, and with him out of the way, all was well.
Scapegoating is just passing the buck. It is saying, the problem is not me, but other people and circumstances. It is blinding the mind to one's own responsibility, and throwing it on someone else. The classic example of this is Hitler, who blamed the Jews for the problems of Germany, and, thus, justified killing them. After all, they deserved to die for being so terrible. He put all his guilt and evil on them, which was just the opposite of what Jesus did. He took all the guilt of sinners on Himself. The scapegoater puts all his evil on others.
Hitler actually walked into a town where the people had just been cruelly slaughtered, and he wept saying, "How wicked these people must be, to have made me do this!" Hitler was an expert at covering his own guilt. Everybody else could see it, but man covers his own guilt so he can't see it, so he can go on thinking everything is okay. Even Hitler did not want to be thought of as evil. He wanted to be considered good. He felt forced to do
evil because of others who were at fault. He wrote, "It is true that neither I, nor anybody else in Germany, wanted war in 1939. It was wanted and provoked exclusively by those international politicians who either came from Jewish stock or worked for Jewish interests. After all my efforts of disarmament posterity cannot place the responsibility for this war on me." It was a colossal cover-up, but it fooled nobody but him. It was a covering of folly.
What disturbs me is when Christians, who despise the folly of Hitler, turn around and do the same thing with their own guilt and sin. For example, when a man downed a fifth of whiskey on a dare, and then drove his car onto the sidewalk, and killed two young children, people in the local church said, the Lord must have been trying to teach the parents something. One said, "I don't understand, but the Lord doesn't make mistakes." These Christians would be offended if you told them they were mini-Hitlers, but in fact, they are worse, for they are not casting the blame for evil on the Jews, but back on God Himself. It is not God nor the Jews, but Hitler and the drunken driver who are guilty, and fully responsible for their evil. Put guilt where it belongs, or you will never be able to deal with it. Passing the buck to God is the worst of all kinds of scapegoating. It is the cause for people hating God, just as it is the cause for people hating the Jews.
Scapegoating is one of the most evil things you can do. Those who get into it are almost hopeless to rescue, for they can never be forgiven, because they never accept blame, and so feel no need for forgiveness. It is one of the real dangers of the secular psychiatrist, who tries to assure people they are not sinners, but only victims of circumstances and other peoples actions and attitudes. The poet describes it-
At three, I had the feeling of ambivalence toward my brothers,
And so it follows naturally I poison all my lovers.
But I am happy; how I've learned the lesson this has taught;
That everything I do that's wrong is someone else's fought.
It's funny, but its foolish, for it is a way of covering our sin and guilt that does not work.
It makes us all the more worthy of judgment. Unfortunately, Hitler did not have a monopoly on this folly. Nor is it limited to a few crummy Christians. All of us scapegoat. I have done it many times, and so have you, and we will all likely do it again. Being aware of it is the key to victory. If you know you use and escape mechanism, then you can be honest before God about it, and confess it, and still find the right way out of the maze of guilt. The tragedy of all foolish escape methods is, when you do not know they are foolish and worthless, and go on truly believing that they work, you are self-deceived, and not blessed as David says. David never knew blessedness until he came to the point where he quit trying to escape his guilt, and cover it by clever methods of his own making. When he said, the buck stops here, and acknowledged his guilt, then he entered into the way God provided for covering of sin.
II. THE COVERING OF FORGIVENESS.
David, like all sinners, tried many ways of escape, but he finally tried the only thing that really works. He came to God in repentance; confessed his sin, and received God's forgiveness. That is why this Psalm is a song of joy. He was sick and miserable until he tried God's way. Then he became a healthy man of joy, for when God covers sin, it is gone forever, and does not rob us of joy. The horrible sinner can become a happy saint. The blighted life can become a blessed life.
The reason Jesus died on the cross was to make it possible for any man who repents
and confesses his sin to be forgiven. Jesus does not want any man to be lost and miserable. He loves the sinner, and longs to see them forgiven, and restored to fellowship with God. He desires them to be covered with the only covering that really covers sin and cleanses it forever. A man was brought before his fellow officers in a court martial court. The man had been charged again and again with drunkenness, and had been punished over and over. He was a sorry spectacle of a man, and thought by all to be a hopeless case. The colonel said to the officers in despair, "What can be done-we have tried everything?" A bright young captain spoke up and said, "I believe that I have something to suggest." The colonel was relieved, and passed him the man's record.
"I thought so," said the captain as he read the pathetic record. "There is one thing that has never been done to this man." "What is that?" asked the colonel. He replied, "Sir, this man has never been forgiven." It was like a thunder clap to the officers. They had really never tried that, but the colonel responded, and turned to the man who had been punished so often and said, "I wipe your slate clean. You are a free man, you are forgiven." The man wept as he left the court, but from that day on he became a different man. He stopped his drinking, and after a few years was one of the most trusted men in his regiment, rising steadily in rank.
Nothing worked but forgiveness. David learned this for his life, and went on from being one of the worst sinners in the Bible, to one of the greatest saints. It has happened time and time again in history, and it can happen again right here. If you have tried all kinds of foolishness to escape your guilt, why not try God's way, and experience the covering of forgiveness? Jesus died for your sin, and wants you to escape the penalty you deserve. He promises to anyone who will come to Him that they will not be cast out, but will be forgiven, and all their guilt will be covered.
