Cover or BE COVERED

• illustration •World War II was

over. The Armistice had been signed

in Europe and in Japan. Hostilities had

ceased and the war was over. But,

under the leadership of General

MacArthur, the Allies had bypassed

many islands of the Pacific in their

drive toward Japan, and now, even

though the war was over, tens of thousands

of Japanese soldiers were still

occupying those islands, hiding in the

jungles and mountains of the Pacific.

The Americans said: “The war is

over. A peace has been declared. Lay

down your arms. Come out.” But the

Japanese thought it was a trick. So

MacArthur had the Emperor of Japan

make recordings, which they broadcast

with loudspeakers into the

jungles: “The war is over. Peace has

been declared. Lay down your arms.

Come out.” And only then did the

Japanese soldiers trickle out.

The last soldier came out in

March of 1974—29 years after the

war was over. They asked him,

“Why?” His answer: “I was afraid.”

Track 26

We sinners can try to cover

ourselves.

If you are at war with a stronger

opponent, if you have created enmity

with a more powerful foe, it is natural

to fear. And when we fear, it’s natural

to hide. That’s the spiritual dynamic

that runs underneath this psalm. We

sinners sin. We sinners fear. We

sinners hide. What was the first thing

that Adam and Eve did after their

great sin in the Garden? The Lord

God came walking in the Garden:

“Where are you?” Adam said, “We

heard your voice. We were afraid, so

we hid.”

Tradition says David wrote this

psalm after his great sin with

Bathsheba and the murder of her

husband, Uriah. He went into

hiding. He tried, in the words of this

psalm, to cover himself, to pretend,

to live in hypocrisy.

Look at this in verse 3: “When I

kept silent, my bones wasted away

through my groaning all day long.”

I kept silent. I pretended. I covered.

I hid.

Look at verse 5. “Then I acknowledged

my sin to you and I no longer

covered up my iniquity.”

• illustration • John Ortberg tells a

story from his spiritual mentor,

Dallas Willard. Willard’s two-and-ahalf-

year-old granddaughter, Larissa,

was playing in the backyard, and she

discovered how to make mud, which

she called warm chocolate. It didn’t

take long until she was all-over mud,

and Larissa’s grandmother, who was

there in the backyard reading with

her seat turned away from Larissa,

discovered her, got her cleaned up,

and said, “Now, Larissa, no more of

that.” And she turned her chair to

face Larissa.

Well, pretty soon, the two-and-ahalf

year old went back to the warm

chocolate factory, but making eye

contact with her grandmother said,

“Don’t look at me, Nana. Okay?” And

Ortberg says that Nana, who was a

little bit codependent, agreed.

Three times as the little girl was

playing in the mud, she said, “Don’t

look at me, Nana. Okay?” And Dallas

Willard writes, “Thus the tender soul

of a little child shows us how necessary

it is for us that we be unobserved

in our wrong.” We hide.

Here’s a businessman who checks

into a motel room. The motel has a

policy stated right there: “The name

of the movie that you rent will not

appear on your statement.” And as he

reaches for the remote control, first

he has to fire up a little prayer: Don’t

look at me, God. Okay?

Here’s a student taking an exam.

The adrenaline’s flowing. You’ve

crammed facts into your mind. Your

mind is spinning. They’re in there, but

you can’t access them, and you look

over… Oh, yes. That’s right. Of course.

And you write down the answer.

But there’s more, and you look

again. We call this cheating. And

your soul is bothered, but you need

these answers: Lord, don’t look at me.

Okay? I’ll be back with you in the morning

when I read my Bible, but, for now, would

you do me the service of just turning away?

Because this need outweighs the fear

of God.

Here’s a woman who’s out for

Cover or Be Covered

Walk in the light as he is in the light, and receive the peace of God.

BY JEFFREY ARTHURS

CONFESSION; GUILT; SIN / PSALM 32 {ISSUE 282}

audio

coffee with a friend. She says something

funny and mildly sarcastic about her

husband, and senses from across the

table a little bit of sympathy. She says

something else, and again feels a reciprocal

dynamic. For the next 90 minutes,

she roasts her husband at the stake of

criticism, but even as this conversation is

going on, another one is simultaneously

taking place: Don’t look at me, God. Okay?

Just turn your face away.

Ortberg says this may be one of our

most common prayers, one of our least

acknowledged prayers, one that we may

not even be aware of ourselves. Don’t look

at me, God. Okay? Because this is the

dynamic of the spiritual life: Sinners sin.

Sinners hide. We try to cover ourselves.

Track 27

We use various methods, tools, tricks,

and devices to do this covering. David

used deception. Remember the story of

David and Bathsheba: She became pregnant.

He tried to cover it up. He

brought her husband home from the war

and tried to get them to spend time

together. It didn’t work. But we trick; we

spin; we deceive. Don’t look at me. I’m fine.

I’m good.

Sometimes we use the method of just

ignoring our sin—out of sight, out of

mind. We try to cover it; we try to

smooth it over. Maybe this was the

dynamic with Peter. Peter denied his

Lord, Jesus. Then Jesus rose from the

dead. But apparently, things weren’t

right. There wasn’t reconciliation there.

What did Peter do? He returned to his

old occupation of fishing. We don’t

know his motive, but perhaps what was

driving him was just a desire to get back

to the mundane.

And you and I spend 12 hours a day at

the office. We occupy ourselves. We just

work, work, work. Because anytime your

mind lifts from your work for an instant,

it returns to the scene of the crime. Or

we spend 4 hours a night on the Internet.

Just fill it, fill it, fill it. We ignore as a

method of covering our own sin.

Another method we use is justification,

and this is my personal favorite.

We justify ourselves: “Yes! Yes, I did

wrong. Yes, but … our motives are

always mixed, aren’t they? Yes, I

shouldn’t have done it, but the people

made me. My kids made me. My

coworkers made me. If my spouse just

wasn’t so hardhearted, then….” But what

does that do for your sin? Take it away?

Track 28

We sinners sin. We sinners hide. We

use various methods to do that hiding.

And Scripture teaches that when we try

to cover our own sins, his hand falls

heavy. When we try to mask our own

sin, we groan, we fade, we bake in the

heat of discipline. That’s what the

Scripture says in verses 3 and 4: “When I

kept silent, my bones wasted away

through my groaning all day long. For

day and night your hand was heavy

upon me; my strength was sapped as in

the heat of summer.” Literally: My moisture

was evaporated. I became desiccated.

I’m like a raisin. I have no

strength. I’m fading away.

Now, what’s David describing here?

We know, don’t we? He’s describing

conscience and the physiological

response our bodies have to a troubled

conscience. Your mind spins; your

stomach churns.

• illustration • At Temple University,

they’re doing some research using brainimaging

technology. And they have

found that when we lie, there’s a lot

more going on in the brain than when

we tell the truth. Dr. Scott Farrow, who’s

one of the researchers there, says: “Lying

is a complex behavior. There’s more

activity. There are more interactions

during a lie than during truth telling.”

Your mind spins. Your heart pounds. We

groan. We fade.

Track 29

We sinners can confess and be

covered by God’s forgiveness.

Isn’t there a better alternative? Is this the

way we want to live our lives? We can

try to cover our own sins, or we can, as

David models, confess. See there in

verse 5: “Then I acknowledged my sin to

you and did not cover up my iniquity. I

said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to

the Lord’—and you forgave the guilt of

my sin.”

We acknowledge. We confess. We

respond in transparency. We respond in

non-hypocrisy. We confess: “Lord, I’ve

done wrong. I’ve broken your holy laws.

I made an idol of my money. I have

committed adultery in my mind or with

my body. I have cheated. I have stolen

things that don’t belong to me. I have

criticized. I have ruined the unity. I have

sinned. I did it.”

All sins are committed against God.

Even if I sin against you, it is primarily

a sin against God, because he is

involved. He infuses all human interactions.

The way I treat you is the way

I’m treating God. So when we confess,

we always confess to God: I’ve done

wrong. I’m sorry. I repent.

Track 30

But we do wrong each other. And

where appropriate and possible, we also

confess to our brother or sister when we

have done wrong.

• illustration • The great evangelist

D. L. Moody was on an evangelistic

campaign in England. While he was

there, he fell in love with the English

lawns—manicured and beautifully green.

And when he came back to Northfield,

Massachusetts, he determined, I’m going to

put in one of those lawns. And he worked on

that thing; he raked it and he groomed

it, and it was just coming in. Then his

boys Paul and Will let the horses loose

from the barn, and they walked right

across that new lawn and ruined it. And

Moody lost it. He blew up. He yelled at

them. He sent them away.

Many years later, one of the boys,

writing his father’s biography, remembers

how they heard his heavy footsteps

outside their door. He approached and

laid a heavy hand on each of their heads.

And he said: “I want you to forgive me.

That wasn’t the way Christ taught.”

Maybe his finest sermon.

We confess to God. We confess to

each other. But the Scripture also

teaches that we confess as a group—

corporately. “No man is an island unto

himself…” but each of us is a part of the

continent, and we have a group identity,

so together we acknowledge our sin.

Track 31

We sinners sin. We sinners hide …

or do we? No. We sinners confess. And

when we do this—I declare to you on

the basis of this Word, not my word—

when we confess, he extends the

shalom of God. And it’s richer than just

peace. It means fullness, health, prosperity,

and blessing. When we confess,

he forgives.

Verses 1 and 2: “Blessed is he whose

transgressions are forgiven, whose sins

are covered. Blessed is the man whose

sin the Lord does not count against

him and in whose spirit there is no

deceit.” Note the passive voice:

“Blessed is the one whose transgressions

are forgiven.” Someone else is

doing the forgiving. “Blessed is the one

whose sins are covered.” We could try

to cover ourselves, or we can be

covered. The word “forgiven” in

“whose transgressions are forgiven”

means to lift, to carry, to bear away.

How blessed, how happy, how fortunate,

how full of peace is the one

whose sins are laid upon his shoulder.

The Word says, “Blessed is the one

whose sins are covered.” The word

“covered” means to conceal, to veil, to

put out of sight—like when you’re

having guests over to your house and

you’re cleaning all day, vacuuming and

polishing, and it looks really good. But

there’s just that one room you didn’t get

to, and it’s a mess. It’s ugly. So you close

the door; you veil and cover it. And God

does this for us; he takes our sins and

puts them away: I’m not going to stare at

those anymore. They will no longer gain

my attention. I will no longer focus on

those things.

Isaiah says, “Though your sins be as

scarlet”—today we would say, “though

they are like a neon sign”—”I will make

them as white as snow.” I’ll pull the plug.

I’m not going to stare at your sins

anymore. I’ll cover them myself. You can

try to cover them, or you can confess

and receive the peace that I’ve granted.

How happy, how fortunate, how full of

prosperity and health is the one whose

sins are covered.

Track 32

If you are at war with a more

powerful opponent, if you have created

enmity, then you fear and hide. But what

if the war is over? What if he has made

peace through the blood of his Cross?

What if he desires to make of a wretch

his treasure? What if the armistice has

been signed, and we lay down our arms?

We come out of hiding. We walk in

the light as he is in the light, and we

receive the peace of God.

JEFF ARTHURS is

associate professor of

preaching and communication

at Gordon-

Conwell Theological

Seminary in South

Hamilton, Massachusetts, and author of

Preaching with Variety (Kregel, 2007).

PT.

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