“When I acknowledged my sin to you,
when I stopped concealing my guilt,
and said, “I will confess my offenses to Adonai”;
then you, you forgave the guilt of my sin.”
-Psalm 32:5
Psalm 32 reveals that confession is the starting point to restoring our broken relationship with the Lord.
Until then, we are dead inside.
Or as David so eloquently put it…
“When I kept silent,
my bones wasted away…”
David had to openly admit his sin.
He couldn’t make excuses…
Or try to lay the blame on others.
He had to take full responsibility for what he had done.
Then, and only then, was forgiveness forthcoming.
Another God principle revealed in Psalm 32 is that we are to confess our sin to the Lord…
Not to some priest as the catholics do…
Nor to your Rabbi…
And definitely NOT to your Pastor.
Finally, there’s another huge takeaway here.
This is a lesson the gentile Christian church has been ignorant of for centuries.
This denial has resulted in a blatant disrespect towards God’s Word they have yet to repent of.
What am I talking about?
I’m talking about the idea that it is grace and NOT sacrifices that make you righteous before the Lord.
See, the problem with the gentile church is that they believe grace is something restricted to the New Testament.
They assume grace was only something brought about by Yeshua’s death on the cross, and that it never existed before that.
This faulty way of thinking has led them to conclude the so-called “Old” Testament is irrelevant to their faith walk.
They set up the following false model in their minds:
OT = Salvation by keeping the Law
NT = Salvation via grace through Yeshua’s sacrifice on the cross
But is that really true?
Take a look at verse 10 from Psalm 32.
“Many are the torments of the wicked,
but grace surrounds those who trust in Adonai.“
Hmm…
David clearly says…
It is GRACE that surrounds those who trust in the Lord.
Verse 11 then goes on to say…
“Be glad in Adonai;
rejoice, you righteous!
Shout for joy,
all you upright in heart!”
Psalm 32:11
In other words the mechanism that opens the door to grace is TRUST in the Lord.
Or another way to put it is that having a “circumcised heart” is what’s important…
NOT legalistic “circumcised flesh.”
Are you feeling me here?
Listen homies, when David said, “Grace surrounds those who trust in Adonai“…
He wasn’t pronouncing some future prophecy that would reach its ultimate culmination with the advent of the New Testament.
No man, he was articulating a truth that was a PRESENT reality for him.
He was experiencing and receiving God’s GRACE right then and there.
It wasn’t something he was looking forward to when the Messiah would sacrifice himself on a Roman cross…
He would’ve had no idea about that.
Think about it for a second.
Why do you think David was so passionate to speak about grace in this Psalm?
The reason is that he had committed sins for which there is no atonement under the Levitical sacrificial system…
And he darn well knew it.
So lemme ask you this…
If there is no atonement under the Levitical sacrificial system for adultery and murder…
The sins that David had committed…
Then how could he be forgiven outside of being subjected to the death penalty?
There’s only one answer.
And that answer is GRACE!
Makes sense, right?
This is so important.
So lemme say it again.
If there is no animal sacrifice available that could atone for the sins of adultery and murder that David committed…
If there is no ritual protocol that would facilitate forgiveness for what he did…
Then how in the world could he be forgiven?
Again, the only mechanism left is the mechanism of GRACE.
Ya feel me?
And here’s another truth I doubt no Christian walking the earth right now really understands.
The divine call for animal sacrifices that God ordered the Israelites…
That was all about grace.
It was God’s grace that allowed for the forgiveness of sins…
Not the blood of bulls and goats that were sprayed on the altar.
Even the ancient Jewish sages wrote about this.
They knew that the animal sacrifices were really about trust and obedient to God, NOT legalistic observance.
It wasn’t like the blood of animals possessed some mystical or magical power that enabled one to automatically be forgiven by the Lord.
That’s pagan gentile thinking homies.
The bottom line is that the Lord, IN HIS GRACE, established a system whereby His people could be forgiven of their sin and have their fellowship with Him restored.
But this system had to be observed with the proper understanding and trust in Him.
One couldn’t just sin frivolously thinking all was cool because one could later just offer up a sacrifice and be forgiven.
The sacrificial system was also a way for God to communicate how atonement worked in His Kingdom.
It communicated that when you sinned, an innocent animal had to die for your transgression.
This truth reached its ultimate conclusion when Yeshua was sacrificed on the cross for the sins of all mankind.
But don’t forget, the underlying principle of grace was always present from the very beginning.
When God killed an animal to clothe Adam and Eve for their sin in the Garden of Eden, that was grace.
Again, the Lord providing the Levitical sacrificial system to the Israelites was His Grace in action.
And the ultimate sacrifice of His Son on the cross was all about grace.
Salvation has ALWAYS been about grace…
ALWAYS!
It’s NEVER been about obedience to the law or anything else.
That’s why it’s laughable to view some gentile believer whose Bible knowledge is restricted to what he read in the book of Galatians…
And how he gets all puffed up with arrogance and takes this ridiculous and condescending attitude towards the Torah and the Jewish people as if he knows better…
Because he thinks he’s operating under some superior New Testament dispensation.
Gimme a freakin’ break man.
I’d advise that person to take a really good look at what King David wrote.
David understood the divine reality of grace…
Probably better than any man in history…
And he communicated this truth well in Psalm 32.
See ya all next time.
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