Psalm 32:1-11: "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. When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my vitality was turned into the drought of summer. 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. 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." “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will guide you with My eye. Do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no understanding, which must be harnessed with bit and bridle. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked, but he who trusts in the Lord, mercy shall surround him. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart."
We are living in a time when thought contrary to biblical truth has become the normative order of the day. Yet when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Bible promises that the Spirit of God will raise up a standard. He will give you strength to stand, light in the darkness, and clarity in the middle of this baptism of confusion touching the whole known world today. He will place inside your heart a song of joy this world knows nothing about, and He will open your eyes to see something far beyond this world, something that cannot be gotten by any amount of human effort.
The result of walking in truth is an inner joy no human being can manufacture, a song that cannot be written by a human hand. When all hell is breaking out around you, you are going to see something beyond all of that. Like the Apostle Paul, you will be able to say, "The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."
God will speak to your heart, but He only speaks to a clean one. When a heart is not yet set apart for Him, He petitions it. He woos it. He whispers to you as you are going down the street about certain attitudes and thoughts and behaviors. But once that heart is captivated by truth, then He begins to speak into it.
Blessed is the person who is not trying to hide his or her failed condition from God. Even while ashamed of it, they are willing to step into the light and say, "God, examine my heart. Search the deep and hidden things inside of me that want to masquerade as godliness." David the king prayed that way. He said, "O God, search my heart and know me. Try me and see if there be any wicked way in me."
Left to ourselves, we will always come out smelling like a rose. We will justify what God does not justify. We will call something deficient whole, and eventually we will call something evil good.
Jesus said, "This is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed." In the presence of God, everything inside of us becomes exactly what it really is. There is no hiding it anymore. "But he who does the truth comes to the light."
In a converted heart there is this inner cry, "O God, lead me, guide me, change me. You said I would become a new creation in every area of my life, so don't let me hold on to these old ways and try to squeeze them into the kingdom of God as if You are willing to accept this when You are not." I have a promise of new life, abundant life, eternal life.
The Apostle Paul said to the Corinthian church, "Do not be deceived. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?" These were believers in Christ, but they brought a lot of behaviors with them into this new fellowship with God, and they had a hard time letting go. Don't forget that in the temple of worship in the middle of Corinth, fornication was an act of worship.
So, Paul says, "Do not be deceived." Don't let anybody teach you otherwise. Don't let your own heart convince you that there is no penalty for sin any longer. Then he starts listing a few things. Fornicators, meaning people engaged in sexual intercourse outside the bonds of marriage between one man and one woman, will not inherit the kingdom of God. You can try to say, "Well, God understands that I am not married, and God understands that I have physical needs." But God understands a whole lot more than you do.
From there the list keeps going: idolaters, people who have other gods or who worship something other than Jesus Christ; adulterers, people having affairs outside of marriage, and it starts with a little flirtation in the office and the next thing you know it is in a motel somewhere; homosexuals and sodomites; thieves and the covetous; drunkards and revilers; extortioners, people who use others for their own advantage, whose whole day is about using. How can I use this person? How can I get something from that one? None of these, Paul says, will inherit the kingdom of God.
We are talking about people who continue in these practices. I am not talking about people who might be predisposed to have a certain attraction in their physical makeup to somebody of the same sex. Even if that is the case, God will give you power over that sin. It does not have the right to dominate your life anymore.
In Galatians chapter six he says again, "Do not be deceived." Whatever you sow, you are going to reap. Sow to the flesh and you reap corruption. There is no eternal life in it. Sow to the Spirit and you reap life.
You cannot take what is wrong and make it right in the sight of God. Call it what you will. March in the streets from now until doomsday. It makes no difference. God says it is sin. You cannot make it right.
Then Paul says, "And such were some of you. But you were washed." It is not the water of this world that has formed your thinking. It is the water of God, His holy Word. Yes, you might be struggling, but at least your thinking is right now. You know what direction you are supposed to be going, and you are not trying to justify what is wrong any longer. Now you are sanctified, set apart by God, justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God. You are given power to walk this new pathway. As Paul said, "I am not perfected yet, but I am leaving behind what needs to be left behind, and I am moving toward that which is part of my high calling of God in Christ Jesus."
It is like the man who comes out his door on a winter day and keeps slipping on his walkway and falling on his back on the way to work. His neighbor says, "Why don't you put salt down?" And the man says, "Well, because I like a good slip every now and then." A lot of people are like that in the body of Christ. They like a good slip, and then they come back in and say, "Well, Lord, thank you for forgiving me." There is a point where you play that game with God, and the Bible says you are given over to a darkened mind. Every time you play it, another layer of hardness comes into the heart, and eventually you start calling evil good. Your behavior cannot be challenged anymore, because you have completely justified it. You have built your own fig leaf covering, and you come in singing praises to God, believing somehow this is accepted with Him, until you get to His throne one day and realize it is not.
I am not suggesting you must be perfect, but you are moving in the direction of truth, and you cannot fake that. You either are or you aren't. You cannot be almost pregnant. If you are moving toward truth, it means you are moving away from something, and it is losing its hold on your life. It doesn't mean you won't struggle with it, but it no longer has the right to dictate your direction or dominate your thinking.
The Scripture tells us that the goodness of God leads us to repentance. God says, "Lest you become content in a wrong way of thinking and behaving, I am going to put My hand on you. I am going to take away your strength, and day and night I am not going to let you go." That is why some of you cannot sleep. He will not let go until you and He are finally in agreement.
David had a season in his life when he had done wrong and tried to justify it. He had arranged for the murder of a man because he had an affair with the man's wife. The sweet psalmist of Israel, the giant slayer, had done something he probably never thought he would ever do. But God's hand came on him. Finally, a man of God named Nathan came into his chamber and told him a story, and David's wrath revolted against somebody he did not realize was himself. Nathan looked at him and said, "You are the man, David. You are the man who did this thing." There was an immediate response in the heart of the king. "I have sinned against the Lord. 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."
So, if anybody thinks you cannot be forgiven, the Word of God proves you wrong. This man had committed adultery. He was a fornicator, an accessory to murder, and a liar on top of it, and then he tried to bring the whole thing into the kingdom of God. God put His hand on him and said, "No, this is not going to be part of My kingdom," until David confessed. And when David confessed, God forgave the iniquity of his sin.
"For this cause everyone who is godly shall pray to You in a time when You may be found." There could come a time when it is very hard to pray. It is hard to pray in a time of panic. We saw that on 9/11 here in New York City. There is a season when God can be found, when victory can be won, when newness of life can become your portion.
Revelation tells us that Satan was cast down to the earth with great wrath, and that the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, to carry her away by it. That flood is false doctrine, wrong thinking, evil masquerading as good. It rises against the church of Jesus Christ, saying, "You will bend your knee to us. You will comply with our standards, and if you don't, it is going to get very hot for you in the future." But if we are a people walking in truth, the Scripture says that in a flood of great waters they shall not come near him. You will not be swallowed by this or taken down by the false theologies of this last hour or the threats that accompany them.
"You are my hiding place; You shall preserve me from trouble; You shall surround me with songs of deliverance." Not just in church, but every day, all day. The song that says, "I will never leave you. I will never forsake you." The one that says, "Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life."
The prophet Isaiah says that when the fires start to break out in this world, songs of praise will rise from the earth to the righteous One. There will be a people in that time who carry a melody the world cannot explain, a shout in their heart that cannot be taken away by affliction or threat, or by the whole of society turning dark. They made a choice to walk in truth. They decided that the Bible is the guide and the standard for Christian life, and for all life as a matter of fact. They chose to put away what offends God, to lay down what Christ died to give them victory over. Because of it they are preserved. They are surrounded by God, guided by His Spirit, and met by His mercy, and there is a shout of joy in their hearts in the midst of all that is coming on this world.
Don't put the day away. Don't say, "Tomorrow I will deal with this." You don't know if you have a tomorrow. All I can tell you is that today, if you can hear His voice, harden not your heart, because the reward is great if you can hear. Don't make a wrong choice in your life. Self-image doesn't separate you from God. Sin does. Deal with it. Walk with God. You will never regret walking with God. Give Him your all.