Truth in the Inward parts
A confession
Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah and the object of King David’s lust and desire, has become pregnant with David’s child. David’s response to the news of Bathsheba’s pregnancy is to compound his sin of adultery by committing conspiracy and murder. He has had Uriah sent to the front lines of battle (where the king should have been) to be sure he is killed so that nobody will find out about his sin. He figures if he can marry Bathsheba quickly, then perhaps nobody will know what he has done.
But Nathan has come with words from God. David’s sin is uncovered, and judgment has been pronounced. The child will die (II Samuel 11 & 12). Furthermore, great trouble and disgrace will fall upon David’s house, and calamity will break his heart.
Despite the terrible news of the forthcoming consequences of his sin, David is not making excuses, blaming anyone else, or trying to shift responsibility. He knows his sentence is just. He knows he deserves death, but Nathan has told him that he is not going to die.
David has been suffering from a guilty conscience, and until God pins him down through the ministry of Nathan, David has been doing his best to run from the truth about himself and his sin. Now that his sin is uncovered, it is with apparent relief that he makes a clean breast of it. His body has been in pain because of his sin, he has not slept; he has been plagued by visions of what he has done. But left to his own devices, he would keep the matter hidden.
After the lesson, the rebuke, the correction, and his punishment, King David addresses the words of this Psalm to Jehovah God;
” Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.” Psalms 51:6
David shows us by example how far a man or woman can get off the track, even when they are known as men and women of God. He shows us, more importantly, that we can return to the Lord in the space of a breath if our repentance is true. He admits that it is against God primarily that he has sinned, though no one would argue that he has sinned against Uriah and Bathsheba as well. He shows us that we must take the natural consequences of our sin, even as we repent and receive forgiveness from God: that we must not despise the Lord’s rebuke. He demonstrates his desire to have truth in the inner parts to please God.
The story of King David reads like a modern soap opera. It is filled with intrigue, danger, betrayal, love, lust, fear, and pride. The difference between David’s life and that of so many others we may read about is his faith in the truth of God. His faith is not a mental assent to the truth. He KNOWS God. He KNOWS he has been walking his own way, but he also knows that God is a real Person who is aware of his every move, and that there will be a time of reckoning. God, out of love for David, brings him a very personal word to show that He has seen the whole thing; He will now discipline David harshly so that he will never do such a thing again. David knows God’s love, knows God is telling the truth, and accepts His Judgment. He is willing to accept his punishment, and God’s chastisement propels David to his knees, passionately seeking the comforting breast of his Father even while confessing his guilt.
David is not angry with God, nor does he despise His rebuke. Listen for his heart as you read David’s words to his King.
“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. (2) Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. (3) For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. (4) Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge. (5) Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. (6) Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place. (7) Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. (8) Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. (9) Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. (10) Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. (11) Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. (12) Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. (13) Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you. (14) Save me from blood-guilt, O God, the God who saves me, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness. (15) O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. (16) You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. (17) The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Psalms 51:1-17
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How does this relate to us?
WE SIN.
Knowing this, we can recognize that there are several ways we may respond.
We can:
Ø seek to hide our sin and compound it;
Ø sin blatantly and openly in spite of God and our fellow man;
Ø brag about it with sarcasm;
Ø repent and hide our sin and hope that God is the only one who finds out; OR
Ø repent to God AND confess our sins to one another and pray for one another so that we may be restored to fellowship with a clean conscience.
God has given us a way to deal with sin as members of the Body of Christ:
“Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. (14) Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. (15) And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. (16) Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. (17) Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. (18) Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. (19) My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, (20) remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.” James 5:13-20
Some of the OG Christians remember the good old testimony time at the camp meeting. What seemed like pious testimony was often a gory blow-by-blow account of the nastiest sins anyone could think of. God received very little glory out of these stories since many of the misled participants were merely playing “can YOU top THIS”. It was a dangerous game because it was a flesh-a-thon and when the thrill was gone very few people came away edified, healed, or transformed.
I recall reading the comments of one man who was thrilled when Billy Sunday, the old-time Evangelist, would preach explicitly about sexual sin; for this man, the vicarious thrill of hearing this sort of speech was almost as good as doing the real thing. What a shame. The sensational devices we employ to "improve" our testimonies can be turned around and used as an affront to the truth and testimony of our faith in God.
It is obvious by now that I am not advocating that when we sin we stand up on a stump and tell the world all the gory details. I am saying that we should follow the scriptural methods of repentance, restitution, and reconciliation. If you sin against a brother or sister, go to him or her and confess (if doing so will not cause further harm). If your sin is private, confess in private and repent. Make restitution where God requires it, and seek God so that you will not repeat your sin. You can rest assured that your sins are forgiven and now under the blood of Christ.
When men come to you to demand an explanation for your past actions, what should your answer be?
If their accusations are just, then you should tell the truth. If you have confessed your sin to God and man, then you have nothing to fear by telling the truth. If you have paid restitution or made amends, you have nothing else to pay. You can stand clean before the Lord, a forgiven sinner who can admit your fault. The response of such people who will point the finger is usually to shut up in wonder because they expected an argument, a defense, or a lie. By telling them the truth, you have thwarted their original motives (usually) and have turned the moment into an opportunity to be a representative of Christ.
When we allow for the truth of God in our lives, to tear down our strongholds of sin, we are becoming new creatures in Christ. We are showing that the Grace of God prevails in our lives. We are free to share the Grail of Truth with those who will drink because we stand clean before our Lord.
When we seek to hide things from others, we are usually protecting ourselves. There is a tremendous temptation in the life of Christians to hide their humanity in an impossible attempt to look good and appear sinless by their efforts. The apostle Paul lays it out clearly for us to see:
“As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; (11) there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. (12) All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." (13) "Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit." "The poison of vipers is on their lips." (14) "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." (15) "Their feet are swift to shed blood; (16) ruin and misery mark their ways, (17) and the way of peace they do not know." (18) "There is no fear of God before their eyes." (19) Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. (20) Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. (21) But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. (22) This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, (23) for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (24) and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (25) God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished-- (26) he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. (27) Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. (28) For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law. (29) Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, (30) since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. (31) Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.” Rom 3:10-31
When I was a young woman, and a five or six-year-old Christian, I began my lay ministry in music, Bible studies, and teaching. I remember having a conversation with my (then) pastor in which he took me to task for so often publicly confessing my failures and faults. He said that I should be careful not to appear too weak to people or they would doubt my ability to lead them. He taught me to keep up appearances, to put up walls and shields, and to be “positive” all the time, no matter what was going on. He warned me NEVER to put important things on paper (so they couldn’t come back to haunt me later) and not to socialize too much with the congregants so they wouldn’t know too much about my private life.
Though I am sure he did not realize it, nor did he intend to do so, my pastor was teaching me to lie, to be a hypocrite, to hide, and to be dishonest. By following his advice I was teaching the congregation, by example, that there was something wrong with their walk with God because THEY were experiencing pain, weakness, lapses into sin, temptation, and all other sorts of problems THAT ARE PART OF OUR DAILY WALK OF FAITH IN THIS WORLD! The inference was that I WASN’T! I do not condemn my old pastor, but neither will I forget the impression he left upon me. Those of us who teach have a greater condemnation. The fruit of our lessons WILL come back to our plates, and we WILL eat of it! Scripture is clear on this point:
“Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” James 3:1
Being the daughter of Adam and Eve that I am, it was much easier to learn this sort of behavior than to unlearn it. It is a sneaky, pride-filled way to go through life, designed to make us look good, and it keeps people off our backs (at least temporarily) so they won’t question us.
To confess our weakness often opens us up to attack by others who would like to have us believe that THEY don’t HAVE these sorts of problems. The truth is, we ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Not ONE of us can boast a sinless walk, EVEN AFTER WE HAVE BECOME FOLLOWERS OF CHRIST JESUS, our Elder Brother, and the Second Adam!
Al Denson, a Christian music artist, had a CD entitled, “tabula rasa” (clean slate). Inside the cover, it says:
Ta|bu|la ra|sa … Latin. 1 the mind before it is developed and changed by experience 2 clean slate (literally) an erased tablet.
When we sin, we can have a clean slate again through confession, repentance, and restitution. Then, even if we must pay the natural consequences of our sin, we don’t have to have our souls marred any further through unbelief, despising our correction, or guilt over that for which we have already received forgiveness! We can walk in truth on the King’s High Way as those who are forgiven because of God’s mercy, sons and daughters by His grace.
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At age 14, after the death of my 39-year-old father, Dale, I became a Christian. Through the years I sought to love the Lord with all my heart, and to serve Him. Many times I stumbled and fell, and other times I succeeded in getting His message of love across to others so that they, too, became followers.
Like David, I became complacent in my walk at times. In the darkest time of my life, I fell into sin, unwilling to submit myself to God; I had received great hurt from the church and became angry, blaming God. Resistant to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I was headed for a terrific fall.
Like David, I wandered around with pain in my bones and I suffered from insomnia. I involved others in my sin, teaching them to copy me. On my way back from the pit, I fought kicking and screaming because I had found some truth. I thought I could justify my actions by accusing those in the church (like my old pastor) of hypocrisy, lying, and exploitation. I felt that I could do more “good” outside the church, and though I kept my paltry “love” of God (based on emotion and NOT right action), I sought to persecute organized religion for a time. I felt justified in my rebellion and called it “individualism”, temporarily blinded I did not recognize the fact that each “individual” is hopelessly lost without Christ.
I fell into a dark depression that caused me to become reclusive. I lost everything that I had. But thanks to the love of Christ, I was like the prodigal son who awoke and came to his senses while he was munching on pig food… and I feebly crawled back to Abba, hoping to be accepted, ready to live like a hired servant for the rest of my days, but just determined to go back “home”.
Of course, my Father met me more than halfway. He ran up the road to meet me… He supported me as I stumbled over the spiritual rags that hung off my body. He washed me with the Water of His Word, Fed me the Bread of Life, and gave me a drink from the Rivers of Living Water. He led me safely back to the fold and rejoiced over me. He restored me to fellowship and began a wonderful work of restoration in areas I couldn’t even imagine. He taught me about forgiving others to be freed from the bondage of holding grudges. He eventually brought people back from my past so I could make amends to them and confess the truth of God to them.
Every day, the accuser of the brethren reminded me of the sins of my past. At first, I couldn't even raise my eyes to God and would fall easily into depression. But after a time I learned to "agree with [my] adversary quickly - and to gratefully acknowledge the truth - the whole truth - that Yeshua loved me so much that he (metaphorically) broke my leg and bound it again, holding me close to Him as I healed and learned to cling to Him. All praise goes to Him. 26 years later, I still marvel at His love and faithfulness toward me.
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Beloved, you may be so burdened with your past that you cannot bear for anyone to know the truth about you. You may be hiding in the shadows, afraid to get close to others because they may not accept you once they know who you are. You may even feel that you cannot be forgiven because you have not forgiven yourself. You may have paid dearly for your mistakes and willful sins. But if you have repented (changed your mind about sinning), and if you have sought forgiveness from God for sins of your past, and if you are ready to make amends or pay restitution, then you may take comfort in the fact that you are forgiven.
If you are feeling condemned by others, Paul spoke very clearly to those who think they stand in righteous judgment against you:
“You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. (2) Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. (3) So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? (4) Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance? (5) But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. (6) God "will give to each person according to what he has done." (7) To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. (8) But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. (9) There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; (10) but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. (11) For God does not show favoritism.” Romans 2:1-11
The ONLY righteous Judge of man is God. But Scripture tells us that God is not willing that any should perish:
“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9
If we will lie down upon the altar of God and allow Him to consume us with His Holy Fire, we will be changed, forgiven, healed, and restored. We cannot do it for ourselves, but the God of Truth CAN!
Here is my prayer for you:
May God give you mercy, bring you to His throne of Grace, and supply all your needs, as you desire to grow in Him. May you give up your pride and your fear and lay your guilt before Him so that He may give you good things. May you seek Him every day, and trust in Him. May He fill you with His presence and give you truth in the inward parts.
Amen
Pastora Cate Covert
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Pastora Cate