What all of the godly pray (Ps. 32:1-6)

When reading scripture, I always look for and am delighted when I find that my own case as a sinner is recorded in God's word. It delights me to know that the Spirit of God, who searches the deep things of God, who knows His will (Rom. 8:26-27; 1 Cor. 2:10), has spoken of Christ throughout scripture as all of my hope. As we love to sing, “Though poor and needy, I can trust my Lord; though weak and sinful I believe His word. O glad message! Every child of God ‘hath everlasting life’” (from the hymn, “Verily, Verily”). That is the message of Psalm 32. That well-known Psalm of David deals with the doctrine of justification: how God justifies the ungodly (Rom. 4:4-8)! The apostle Paul uses Psalm 32 to teach justification from the Old Testament. The truth taught is the most blessed of all: God “justifieth the ungodly.” He therefore justifies sinners without any works done or to be done by them, without any merit found in them, and without any merit to be found in them, but by the free grace of God alone, on the just ground of Christ’s redeeming blood alone (Rom. 3:24-25). The apostle teaches that sinners receive this justification in application by God-given faith alone, apart from all works on their part. The entire matter of our salvation therefore removes all boasting from all men. God alone receives all of the glory in our salvation (Rom. 4:4-8; Eph. 2:8-9; Rom. 9:13; 11:5-6; 1 Cor. 1:30-31; Jer. 9:23-24).

David said it this way: “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin” (Ps. 32:1 as quoted by Paul in Rom. 4:7-8). David first says that some men are actually justified: their iniquities are forgiven; their sins are covered, to them, the Lord will not impute sin. David continues in Ps. 32 to relate his own experience. Have you ever wondered as a sinner if your sin is too bad for God to forgive you? Take heart, fellow-sinner! God justifies the ungodly! He holds David before us to show us that He must necessarily justify by His grace, in spite of our sins. David committed adultery. He murdered the husband of the woman he made to sin. He then covered it up. He showed by this that he knew full well that what he did was wrong. He then lived in public hypocrisy for some time afterwards. But David said that when he kept silent about this, when it remained hidden, unconfessed in his own conscience, when he would not bring it before God, that “my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long” (Ps. 32:3). David explained why his heart pained him. It was not for qualities in himself. He was afflicted by the chastening hand of God in grace. God’s hand afflicted David’s conscience. “For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah” (Ps. 32:4-5). Therefore, David’s affliction of conscience and his confession of his sin was itself the work of God. Jeremiah said it this way. "Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the LORD my God" (Jer. 31:18-19; Acts 5:31; 2 Tim. 2:25).

But then, in Psalm 32, David says something that is very comforting to every believing sinner. He said that all of the godly pray this way to God. All of the godly pray about these two things: they confess their sins, and they look to Christ. David said everyone that is godly prays as he was taught to pray! He confessed his sin to God, and to God he looked for mercy in Christ as his sin-atoning, justifying righteousness. This is precisely what the Publican prayed (Luke 18:13; Rom. 3:24-25). He asked God to have mercy on him, though a sinner, considering the propitiatory sacrifice! David and the Publican prayed the same prayer: receive me for Christ’s sake alone, as my propitiation to God. “For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him. Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah” (Ps. 32:6-7)!

What a mercy! Our coming to God as sinners by the blood of Christ is God’s work in us (John 6:37-40, 44-45; Col. 2:12; Ps. 80; Hosea 13:9; 14:1-2)! When we are afflicted in conscience for our sins, and when that affliction drives us to Christ for mercy, as the leper’s plague drove him to Christ (Matt. 8:2), and as Bartimaeus’ blindness drew forth his importunate cry to Jesus that he might see (Mark 10:47-51; Luke 18:13; Heb. 10:19), and when we also confess our sins in so coming (1 John 1:7-10), then we find that our great Advocate and Intercessor (Rom. 8:26-27, 34) is the propitiation for our sins by His own blood. Therefore, on that ground, He advocates for us before God (1 John 2:1-2). He who is our propitiation to God by His blood advocates to God for us by that blood. And He sends to us the grand proclamation from heaven that He has received release, forgiveness, justification for sin-bound, law-cursed captives! “The ungodly Justified! Sinners forgiven! The lawful debtor redeemed! Liberty to captives” (John 5:24; 8:11; Luke 18:13; Rom. 8:1; Lev. 25:10; Isa. 61:2; Luke 4:18; Col. 1:14; Eph. 1:7)! As David and the Publican and the leper and blind Bartimaeus, so does “everyone who is godly.” All who are godly thus pray as David prayed, because we find it in our heart to do so because God afflicts our conscience because of our  sin and from the Gospel, tells us of His grace in Christ (2 Sam. 7:27; Ps. 32:1-4; Ps. 130:4). This is the prayer of everyone that is godly, all sinners whom the LORD has brought to look to Christ (Isa. 45:22; John 3:14-15).

What a blessing of grace our God has given us to draw us to Christ for the cleansing of all of our sins, at all times, but especially when the weight of God’s hand lies heavy upon our conscience (Ps. 32:4). There is no sweeter communion than to come to Christ for continuous and repeated cleansing of our sins, and to find our life and satisfaction and delight in His broken body and His shed blood (John 6:56). “For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found” (Ps. 32:6)! The godly are those given to Christ, those Christ made holy by His blood (Heb. 13:12; 10:10), those justified and made blameless in Christ, by His one offering of Himself to God for them (Eph. 1:4-6; Heb. 10:14). Coming to Christ in this manner is the work of the Spirit of God in us (John 6:29, 37-40, 44-45).

Rick Warta