Turning Point

Guest (Male): Do the mistakes of your past still haunt you in the present? Do you sometimes feel as if your sins are so grievous, even God can't forgive you? Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah has a word of encouragement for you as he shares some reassurance of God's grace and forgiveness from the Psalms. From God, I need some answers. Here's David to introduce his message.

Host: Dr. David Jeremiah: How can I be truly forgiven?

Host: Dr. David Jeremiah: Well, from Psalm 32 and Psalm 51, we enter into the episode of David and his sin and how he sought forgiveness and what happened before and after that took place. During these days, we've been focusing on the Psalms, and we have taught many of them during these past days here on the radio.

But I'd like to suggest to you that in a world that can often feel barren and uncertain and lonely, you need to go back to the Psalms and find the roadmap to step into biblical and true flourishing. So we've written this book called "Five Psalms for a Flourishing Life," and it features Psalm 1, Psalm 23, Psalm 46, Psalm 91, and Psalm 103.

And it is timeless truth found within these Psalms that can lead you into a life that is connected to God, the one who can transform your wilderness experience and give you peace. I'd love to give you this 236-page hardback book. I'll send it to you when you reciprocate and help us with the cost of Turning Point.

Here's how this works. During the month, we select a very special resource. And when you send a gift of any size and ask for it, we send this resource to you to encourage you, to say thank you in a tangible way and to add value to your Christian experience. This is one of the coolest things we've ever done. This beautiful book is full of truth and help, and it's beautifully designed.

You will love having this book in your home, on your coffee table where others can see it. And it will cause many questions and open up many discussions. I hope you'll give us the chance of sending you this book when you send your gift today. Well, here's part one of, "How Can I Be Truly Forgiven?"

Host: Dr. David Jeremiah: Her name was Catherine Ann Power, a 1960s student who was described as armed and very dangerous. Catherine had driven the car in a deadly 1970 bank robbery in Boston. And one of her accomplices had killed a policeman, a heroic cop, the father of nine children.

And for 23 years, Catherine Powers hid her past, changing her name, changing cities whenever she felt threatened, deliberately never driving faster than the speed limit, losing contact with her parents and six brothers and sisters.

And at 44, after 23 years of running, she was consumed by guilt and desperately tired. And after months of therapy, she had come to understand that she suffered from chronic depression. In a prepared statement, she explained that she was ready to face whatever consequences the legal system would impose on her.

She took her first steps toward reconciling her past and her present when she met therapist Linda Carroll in May of 1992. She wept at a class that Carroll gave on depression at a local hospital. In subsequent private sessions, Power described her symptoms. Listen carefully. Waves and waves of almost unbearable sadness, each one stronger than the one before.

Carroll, who spoke to the Corvallis Gazette Times, as Power would try to fight back with intense work and exercise and even prayer. But nothing seemed to help. And after many sessions, Carroll says Power realized that her emotional difficulties would never end until she came clean and gave herself up as a fugitive.

For 23 years, she fooled the FBI and every law officer in America. She moved from place to place and never got caught. But she couldn't escape the sense of guilt and shame that filled her own heart.

And so one day, knowing she would have to spend the next 10 years in prison, she came forward and said, "I did it. I'm the one." And now she confesses to the fact that she is learning to live with openness and truth and no longer experiencing life with a distorted lens.

She agrees that even prison is better than the prison she's been living in. We don't know very much about it, and we don't talk about it nearly as much as we should, but guilt is a pretty powerful force.

And today I want to tell you about a man who lived in the Old Testament times who experienced a very similar situation. It didn't take him 23 years to come clean, but for one long year he tried to cover up what he had done. And it ate his lunch.

In fact, in the Scripture there are two passages that tell the story of David: Psalm 32 and Psalm 51. David was very much like Power in this regard. He had a much different life before the crisis which plunged him into difficulty.

In fact, as you know, David had walked with God for many years. It was widely known that he was the sweet singer of Israel. He had gained a reputation as an incredible prophet, a man who understood the deep things of God. He had been the longtime spiritual leader of his people.

And then suddenly, in his mid-life, he was plunged into a terrible double sin that almost rendered him useless to himself and to God. You remember the account? He was on his palace roof one day when he should have been off to war with his troops.

And as he was walking on the palace roof, he looked out into the courtyard next to him and he saw a beautiful woman bathing herself. His passion was aroused and he sent over messengers and ordered her to be brought to the palace. He committed adultery with her and realized now that he was in big trouble.

Her husband was a soldier in David's army. He was away fighting for the king. And when David found out that through this one-night stand with Bathsheba, she had become pregnant, he panicked and tried to begin to cover up his sin.

He ordered, first of all, Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, home from battle. His plan, his ingenious plan was, if I can get Uriah to go and spend a night with Bathsheba, no one will ever know that this is my child, they will think it's Uriah's child.

So when Uriah came home from the battle, David said, "Why don't you go down and spend a night with your wife?" He sent home a bottle of wine and some nice food, and he said, "Just spend a wonderful night at home." Well, Uriah was more honorable than David.

And Uriah said, "It isn't good that I should do that. My fellow soldiers are out fighting the king's battle. It isn't right that I should be home enjoying a night with my wife." And so Uriah slept on the steps of the palace, and when David awoke the next day, he realized that plan one to cover his sin had failed.

Uriah went back to battle, and David's mind continued to turn, "If I don't deal with this problem," he thought, "it will soon be news throughout the kingdom, and I will be discredited." So he trusted his faithful general, Joab, and he told Joab to send Uriah to the hottest point of the battle, so that he would surely be killed.

In fact, he said, "Joab, what you do is this. You put him at the point of the triangle. You thrust out into battle, and when the battle waxes hot, tell the rest of the soldiers to retreat and leave him there all alone." This time the plan worked. Uriah was killed. And David thought he was home free.

When you read Psalm 32 and Psalm 51, a year has passed since this event. And of course, David, being the most powerful man in the world at that time, probably thought if anybody could handle a cover-up, he could.

The morning for Uriah passed, and everybody gave lip service to the tragic death of this valiant soldier. As soon as the morning period was over, Bathsheba moved into the palace with David and became his wife. The child of David's passion was born, and as we read Psalm 32 and Psalm 51, is now about three months old.

It is quite probable that the 12 months during which this whole thing had been covered up passed with little discussion of David's crimes. But there were a few people who knew. David knew. Bathsheba knew. And Joab, his general, knew.

Oh, yes, there's one other person who knew. Second Samuel 11:27 says, "The thing that David had done displeased the Lord." So the Lord knew. And what we see happening as we read these Psalms is a very good case study of what you do with guilt and what you do with sin and how you deal with it in your life.

First of all, you have to understand that just like Catherine Power, David was going through intense emotional upheaval in his life. There was real conviction in his heart. The history book does not tell us his heart condition during the 12 months that passed, but David himself tells us.

For in Psalm 32, he reminds us of what he was experiencing. He speaks of the anguish of his soul. He speaks of his silence. He speaks how troubled he was in verse 3. He talks about how he was caught up in intensity in his own inward spirit.

In verses 3 and 4 of Psalm 32, he talks about his suffering. He says his bones waxed old through his roaring all the day long. Physiologically, the guilt had begun to move out into David's being and plague him. Even as Catherine Power said, "Waves and waves of depression came one right after the other, and I could hardly stand them."

For a year, he tried to live with his bad conscience. But as the story records, something happened during David's period of sickness and sorrow and anguish over what he had done. And that is that the Lord sent somebody to help him.

Now, David didn't know at the time this happened that this was help, but indeed it was. For he moved from his period of conviction to a time of confrontation. And the record is in Second Samuel 12. Let me read it to you.

In Second Samuel 12, we read, beginning at verse 1, "And the Lord sent Nathan to David." Who is Nathan? He's the preacher, he's the prophet. And he came to David and he said to him, he's going to tell him a story now. You're the preacher, and God says to you, "Go, confront the most powerful man in the world."

How are you going to do this? Well, I kind of get into Nathan a little bit. He says, "I'm not going to do this directly. I think I'll tell him a story." So Nathan comes up with a story. It's the right brain, left brain thing, you know. He wants David to really hear this. And this is the story. And watch this.

"There were two men in one city, one rich and the other poor. And the rich man had exceedingly many flocks and herds, and the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished, and it grew up together with him and with his children. It ate of his own food and drank from its own cup and lay in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him.

"And a traveler came to the rich man, who refused to take from his own flock and from his own herd to prepare one for the wayfaring man who had come to him, but he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him." Do you get the story? Do you need to know who the people are?

Who is the little lamb? That's Bathsheba. Who is the poor man? That's Uriah. Who is the man with all that you could offer and have that wouldn't spare his own? That's David. And when David heard the parable, he hadn't put two and two together, and the Scripture says that David's anger was greatly aroused against this preacher.

And he said to Nathan, "As the Lord lives, the man who has done this thing shall surely die. And he shall restore fourfold for the lamb because he did this thing and because he had no pity." When David heard this, he was, oh, he was hot.

He said, "I've never heard anything that made me so angry. Whoever did this, he will die, and he will give back four times what he took." Now picture this. If I'm the preacher, I realize this is where I have to pull the trigger.

And I'm nervous. Nathan's going to make the application, and the Scripture says, and I picture it, he took his long bony prophetic finger and stuck it in David's nose, and he said, read the text, "You are the man." You're the one I'm talking about.

Wow. He talked about a confrontation. And let me just stop for a moment and say, I know that some of you come to church, and you would prefer that we never say anything about sin, and you would like it if we never talk about anything that's negative or anything that might upset you a little bit.

But let me just remind you, God sent the prophet to David. David didn't ask for him. God sent him to David. Because the prophet was to have a very important ministry in David's life. He was to help David face up to what he had done.

And I don't know this for sure, but if I have to give you my guess as to what David's feeling at this moment when Nathan says, "Thou art the man." Along with the overwhelming anguish of knowing now that he has been found out, I have to believe that David also feels a sense of incredible relief. Finally, it's out.

I've talked to numerous people who've been through experiences similar to this in terms of morality, and they've covered up over a long period of time. And when finally the story is told, that's what they've said to me. "I was overwhelmed that it was known, but I'll tell you the truth, I was glad it was out. I didn't have to live that way anymore."

The confrontation. Could I just say to you men and women that usually there's no change without a confrontation? Somewhere along the way, there's going to be somebody that will come and help us to face up to what's wrong in our life.

And we will either hear it or we will close our ears to it. If David had pushed Nathan away, David had the power to take Nathan's life if he chose. He could have made him another casualty. But David heard the voice of God, and it was the first step back, and I want you to note that.

Because the next thing that happened after the confrontation was a confession. And the confession is written for us in David's journal. In fact, if you turn to the Psalms in your Bible, and you see the superscription over Psalm 51, you will know that I am telling you the truth when I say, this is what David said when he prayed to God at this moment.

For the superscription over Psalm 51 in my Bible says this: "To the chief musician, a psalm of David when Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone in to Bathsheba." Interestingly enough, Charles Haddon Spurgeon says that during that whole year, David probably never wrote anything.

He couldn't write anything, because he was out of fellowship with God. He didn't have any song in his heart. His joy was gone. But immediately after the confrontation, David once again took up his pen and started to make some notations in his journal. And he pens for us in Psalm 51 his own words as he comes back to God.

How do you pray? How do you pray when you've been found out? How do you pray when your sin is so overwhelming that like Catherine Power, you just can't stand it anymore, and you've got to get it out in the open?

Well, let me tell you two things about David's confession. First of all, it was genuine. It was genuine. You say, "Well, Pastor Jeremiah, isn't all confession genuine?" Not really. I read about a guy who wrote to the Bureau of Internal Revenue, and the letter said, "I haven't been able to sleep because last year, when I filed my income tax report, I deliberately misrepresented my income.

"I'm enclosing a check for $150, and if I still can't sleep, I'll send you the rest." Now, that's the way a lot of people confess. Do you know folks like that? Confession for a lot of folks is just telling people what you discovered they already know.

In fact, in our schools, and I can say this from the high school, junior high, all the way through the college, one of the things we learn when we deal with the problems young people face is that a lot of times kids will come clean when they know you already know what they did. But they won't tell you any more than they think you know.

So sometimes you think you got this whole deal wrapped up, and after it's all over, you found out, they didn't come clean at all. There's a whole bunch of more stuff you should have known. Confession can be dishonest and ungenuine. Did you know that?

But I want to tell you something, when David confessed, his confession was genuine. You say, "How do you know that?" Look into the Bible with me and notice what he said about what he did. Verse 1, he calls it transgression, which is rebellion. Verse 2, he calls it iniquity, which is perversion, distortion, acting unjustly, dealing crookedly.

Verse 2, he calls it sin, which means to miss the mark. And verse 4, he calls it evil, which is a vile thing which deserves condemnation. The Hebrew words are much more graphic than our words. What David said was, "God, I want to tell you that I know what I did, and what I did was really bad."

There was no candy coating of his transgression. If you go back in Psalm 32 in verse 5, you see what David said about this prayer after he had written it. He says, "I acknowledged my sin to you, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, 'I will confess my transgression to the Lord,' and you forgave the iniquity of my sin."

In Psalm 51:17, we are told that the Lord honors a broken and a contrite heart. His confession was genuine. He recognized that what he did was wrong. One of the things that keeps many of us from ever knowing renewed joy and in fellowship with God, knowing what it means to have the burden lifted, is we're always trying to make our sin look better.

We're always trying to put it in better terms. We're always trying to couch it in ways so that we don't feel so badly about it. The only way you can ever get any relief from sin is to confess, and you know what the word means? 'Homologeo' in the Greek language means to say the same thing.

It's to look at your sin and to say the same thing about it that God would say. To acknowledge you're wrong. You say, "Well, Pastor Jeremiah, that's so painful, and that's so hard." But it's the only way back. It's where you start through genuine confession.

Notice, secondly, it was not only genuine, it was God-centered. David said, "Against thee, God, and thee only, have I sinned." Now, it's not that he does not understand that others have been affected. David hasn't suddenly lost his knowledge of what happened. He knows Bathsheba has been hurt in this, her purity taken away.

He knows that Uriah is in the ground, dead, because of what happened. He realizes that Joab has been complicated in his own integrity because of what he has done. He knows what's happened to him, but David said, "Lord, it's against you and you only that I have sinned."

David now sees that ultimately his sin is an insult and an injury to God. It is God's love that has been wounded. It is the God of grace against whom he has sinned. And when a person takes that attitude that God's forgiveness is reckoned by his grace and his mercy and that sin is a sin against God first of all, he has taken a major step on his way back.

Unfortunately, our concept of the holiness of God has been so eroded through our easy beliefism in this day, that people almost feel like that's the secondary problem. In fact, let me ask you this question. You do something big time, and it involves other people.

And I give you the option today: either confess it to the person you did it to or confess it to God. Which would you take? Easy. Confess it to God. I mean, you can do that in a quiet little prayer and nobody knows. But if you understood who God was, you wouldn't feel that way.

You say, "What are you talking about?" What I'm talking about is we are all into worship, and thank God that we are. I love to worship. But sometimes if we're not careful, we can get so caught up in the mechanics of worship that we forget who it is that we're worshipping, who God is, His attributes, His love, His faithfulness, His goodness, His holiness, His righteousness.

The worship is secondary to the object of our worship, and David understood that. So when he confessed, he said, "Lord, I know that this is basically an offense against you." Well, when he confessed, something great happened. And let me hold out this hope for all of us today.

Nothing we have ever done, I mean, David, he did the biggies, adultery, murder, cover-up. And yet I want to tell you something, David took the route back. His conviction promoted a confrontation which brought out of him a confession, and now we're going to see the cleansing that takes place in his life.

The same intensity of words that David uses to talk about his sin, he now uses to describe the forgiveness. And I want you to notice these as you look at Psalm 51. He says, first of all, that he wants his sin to be blotted out.

Then he said, "God, I want you to wash away my sin." He sees his sin as a stain upon his soul. He says, "God, take your precious blood and just wash all this sin away." And then he says, "Lord, I want you to cleanse me," verse 2.

And the technical term that he uses in verse 2 is the term for the cleansing of a leper, and it's the term that was used to declare that a leper had been cleansed. He said, "God, take away the leprosy of my soul." And then notice down in verse 7, he prays that he would be purged with hyssop.

And when he says that, he uses his term, he says, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be unsinned." He said, "God, unsinned me." What a great thought, to be unsinned. To be forgiven means to be unsinned. We'll have more on this incredible subject tomorrow here on Turning Point. I hope you'll join us then as we continue our discussion of how to be truly forgiven.

Host: Dr. David Jeremiah: During the month of May, our special resource for the month is the book, "Five Psalms for a Flourishing Life." It's a 236-page hardback book that takes you into the detailed exposition of five Psalms that will enable you to practice your Christian life in a more wonderful way. It's nourishing to the soul. It's greatly helpful to your walk with the Lord. It's practical and it's filled with strategies to enable you to be everything you want to be in your relationship with God. It's our way of saying thank you for your investment in this ministry, and I hope you'll give us the opportunity to send it to you. Once again, send your gift and ask for the book. It'll be on its way to you before you know it. See you tomorrow.

Guest (Male): For more information on Dr. Jeremiah's series, "God, I Need Some Answers," please visit our website, where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected. Our monthly magazine, Turning Points, and our daily email devotionals. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org/radio. That's davidjeremiah.org/radio.

Or call us at 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's new book, "Five Psalms for a Flourishing Life." It'll help you abide with God, and it's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard, New International, and New King James versions, available in your choice of attractive cover options. Get all the details when you visit our website, davidjeremiah.org/radio.

This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue, "God, I Need Some Answers," on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.