sf976 - A Biblical View Of Guilt (Psalm 32 1-5)
Psalm 32:1-5
Introduction
How do you deal with your past when you are suffering the consequences of your sin?
Guilt is pictured in the Scriptures: Judas hanging himself; David and His sin with Bathsheba (Psalm 32).
Biblical guilt is a gift from God. The world says that guilt is to be avoided. No it is the sin that causes guilt that we must get rid of.
1A. Guilt and the Culture
1B. The cultural removal of guilt
Culture wants to get rid of guilt because it is uncomfortable.
Biblical guilt brings us to morning and the cross.
2 Corinthians 7:10 For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.
The world tries to eliminate guilt by doing away with reality sin.
Ø By claiming that we are all victims and therefore not responsible.
Ø By calling sin a sickness/disease.
2B. The cultural replacement of guilt
Self-esteem
Ø No bad people, just people who feel bad about themselves.
Doctrine of total depravity is the Biblical answer. (Ephesians 2:1-3, 12)
2A. Guilt and the Conscience
1B. The conscience defined
Acts 24:16 "In view of this, I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men.
Romans 9:1 I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit,
1 Timothy 1:19 keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith.
Hebrews 9:14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Twenty-three times Paul speaks of the conscience in his epistles
Conscience is the innate ability to sense right and wrong; moral intuition.
Ø Every person is born with a God-given conscience.
Romans 2:14-15 For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, 15 in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them
2B. The conscience directed
Acts 24:16 In view of this, I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men.
Toward God
Ø All sin is first of all toward God
Psalm 51:4 Against You, You only, I have sinned And done what is evil in Your sight, So that You are justified when You speak And blameless when You judge.
Ø Therefore we must confess our sin to God first.
Toward Man
Ø Some sin is against man
Ø When you have injured them, ask forgiveness and make restitution
Ø Is there anyone who can look you in the eye and say you have wronged me and have never made it right?
3B. The conscience defiled
1 Timothy 4:2 by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron,
When we ignore it
When we program it with lies
Ø When we are told that something is wrong that is not. (Romans 14)
Ø When we are told that something is not wrong that is.
3A. Guilt and the Cross
1B. Biblical guilt requires the cross
When we recognize our guilt, we see the cross as the only solution.
The more we recognize our guilt the more we magnify the cross.
1 John 2:2 and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.
2B. Biblical guilt reckons on the cross
We are to count forgiven our sins that He has forgiven.
The cross is the continuing basis of our forgiveness.