Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1346
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Evening, March 25, 1877
“Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputes not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.” Psalm 32:2.
THE only blessing the Law can give, it bestows on those who do no iniquity and walk perfectly in God’s ways—the Gospel, alone, has a blessing for the guilty. Upon their believing in Jesus, it pronounces the benediction, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, and whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputes not iniquity.” To be “blessed” is to be in the most desirable state—at peace with God, happy in yourself and full of Divine favor. A man cannot be more than blessed, or, what if I say, doubly blessed since the benediction is pronounced twice? Nor is it a stinted blessing, for no limiting word is put before it or after it to mark an inferior benediction.
When our Lord opened His mouth in the Sermon on the Mount, He poured forth a stream of blessings, and even so does the Gospel, when it speaks to the soul—rivers of blessing flow from its every word! The language of the text is very emphatic in the original and implies a multiplication of blessings. There cannot be a more true, real and assured blessedness than that which belongs to the forgiven sinner. All the blessedness which could have come to a perfect man comes to the man whose transgression is forgiven.
O you who have sinned against God and are conscious of it, rejoice that you are not shut out from blessedness! If, by faith, you can believe in the sin-forgiving God and accept the matchless Atonement which covers all your guilt and if you will exercise faith upon that blessed system by which sin is no longer imputed, then you are even now among the blessed! God Himself has blessed you and neither men nor devils can reverse the benediction. Now, mark that at the very same time that the guilt of sin is taken away and blessedness is bestowed, it happens unto the forgiven man that he undergoes a change of nature.
The work of the Spirit is linked with the work of the Son—when the Son removes guilt, the Spirit removes guile. He who takes away our offenses, also cures our deceit. When we begin to be Believers, we cease to be liars. He who was, before, crafty as Jacob no sooner receives the blessing of the Lord in answer to prayer than he becomes “an Israelite, indeed, in whom is no guile.” It is to this fact that I am going to draw your attention at this time. As I desire to use it as a means for self-examination and awakening, I pray the Holy Spirit to apply it with power to many souls.
You must all have noticed in David’s case, that after he had fallen into his foul sin with Bathsheba, he ceased to exhibit that transparent truth-speaking character which had charmed us so much before. Until he had obtained a sense of pardon for his great crime, David was as crooked and perverse as he could be. Guile was as abundant in him as guilt, for he made no confession of his sin and would not allow himself to see the heinousness of it. He must have put a fearful strain upon his conscience to have hushed its protests against his grievous offense. Perhaps even months passed without any honest acknowledgment to his own conscience and to God that he had so foully sinned. His entire endeavors were concentrated upon the concealment of his crime and, to that end, all his wits were set to work with horrible cunning.
What crafty devices he practiced in seeking to hide his sin—such as bringing Uriah back and making him drunk! Could this be David—the honest and conscientious David of former days? Could he have become so mean, so full of low scheming? Could he be the Psalmist who sung so sweetly? Could he deliberately plan the death of the man whom he had so fearfully wronged? Yes, and worse, when Uriah, being willfully exposed to danger, fell in battle, David manifested no compunction, nor uttered a word by way of confession. He put it off with apparent indifference, saying, “the sword devours one as well as another.”
He knew right well how Uriah came to die, and Joab knew, also, and yet he trumped up a message, as if nothing had been arranged between them beforehand. Ah, David, what a deceitful heart you had and how you did practice guile upon
guile! Yes, so blind had his mental vision become, as to his own sinfulness, that when Nathan outlined a picture which was the very photograph of his own case, he did not see it, but pronounced a fierce sentence against the supposed culprit! It needed the Prophet to come forward and say, “You are the man,” before that guileful heart of David was able to perceive that Nathan spoke of him!
Yes, sin gives a twist to our entire manhood and makes us play a thousand tricks both with our conscience and with God. But notice, as soon as Nathan said, “The Lord has put away your sin: you shall not die,” David became another man! He wrote the 51st Psalm, which is one of the most honest pieces of writing that ever fell from human pen. How plain-spoken it is all through! How bare is the penitent’s bosom! In it you do not so much hear the sound of vibrating harp-strings as of throbbing, breaking /zeart-strings! All through it, the man’s soul is running over at his lips and at his eyes—concealment and trickery are quite out of the field. Pardoned sin makes an honest heart, but while sin is unconfessed and unforgiven the serpent rules within and men twist, wriggle, wind and turn in a thousand deceitful ways.