Sermon:  Thorns of Conviction – March 18, 2007

Big Idea:  Silence isn’t golden; it’s deadly

An Irishman — with apologies to Irishmen everywhere — had been drinking at a pub all night. The bartender finally said that the bar was closing. So the Irishman stood up to leave and fell flat on his face. He tried to stand one more time with the same result. He figured he’d crawl outside and get some fresh air to sober himself up.

Once outside he stood up and fell flat on his face. So he decided to crawl the four blocks to his home. When he arrived at the door he stood up and again fell flat on his face. He crawled through the door and into his bedroom.

When he reached his bed, he tried one more time to stand up. This time he managed to pull himself upright, but he quickly fell right into bed and was sound asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

He awoke the next morning to his wife standing over him, shouting, “So, you’ve been out drinking again!”

“What makes you say that?” he asked, putting on an innocent look.

“The pub called — you left your wheelchair there again.”

Talk about conviction, that man was certainly convicted by his wife.  But what do I mean this morning by the thorns of conviction?  Let’s first look at the word conviction.  It can mean a strong belief.  A sentence using it would be, “He was guided by his strong convictions.”  But it can also mean proving guilty of a crime.  He was convicted of speeding would be another way to use it in a sentence. 

This morning I am referring to conviction as that inner voice that tells you, you have done wrong. That voice may be outside of your self as well and come from a good friend or as in David’s case a prophet, named Nathan.  Sometimes it takes someone to point our sin before we do anything about it. 

But our main text today refers to that inner voice, feeling or whatever that reminds us that we have fallen short of God’s glory and what happens if we don’t do anything about it. 

This inner conviction can be on a large scale.  Let’s say you cheated on your income taxes and all of a sudden you can’t eat or sleep and you keep hearing, “Thou shalt not steal” in your mind.  Clearly, you know the Scriptures and you know stealing is wrong but you did it anyway.  Now, you are eaten up by guilt and life is miserable and that’s a good thing.  But your sin and mine doesn’t have to be so large, so dramatic. 

This past Monday, I went to play golf as I do every other Monday with my best friend, Terry.  Well, I had gotten the tee time for us.  I had emailed him to tell him where and when.  Our tee time was at 9:26 Firewheel in Garland at the Bridges course.  I had a 2 for 1 coupon so I was really looking forward to it. 

Well, 9:20 rolls around and Terry is no where to be seen.  I call him and he doesn’t answer.  I take my cart out into the parking lot and wait for him and wait for him. Now, I know how my guys feel when I’m running late.  I call him again.  He picks up.  T – where are you?  Just a few minutes away, I’m at Brand road and 544.  T, that’s about 10 minutes away.  Hurry up.  You see there was a pro golf event there that day and groups were going out in front of us and my wife had a dentist appointment at 3:30.  So I was not a happy camper.  Even though the golf pro said it wasn’t a big deal.  Well, I wanted it to be.  How could Terry not think of me!  Then, that inner convicting voice or feeling hit me. I wasn’t being like Christ in my mind with Terry.  Here was my buddy of over 20 years, certainly, I could be gracious, couldn’t I?  These times together are important to me. In the last few years he and I have had to say good bye to the other 2 members of our foursome. Both Bob Andrews and Rick Hager have gone to be with the Lord.   I miss them and don’t want to miss the time with my brother terry and I have left.    But that’s no excuse for being ungracious in my mind.  Ah, the thorns of conviction.  Thankfully, being the son of a Baptist preacher, he was so full of guilt, I didn’t have to say a thing. 

I’m sure you’ve felt the same feelings as I.  That terse word to your spouse, that explosion of anger at your kids, that thought about what it would be like to have more than you do.  The feeling kicks in and you feel lousy.  You say in your heart, “I’ll show her. I won’t talk to her for a couple days or I’ll withdraw from my kids, then they’ll know how they hurt me.  You know you’re getting even but you don’t care.  But the Lord does and His spirit begins to work on you.  Little by little, you start thinking that your attitude is wrong and you need to make amends.  Eventually, you go back to whomever and get it right.  You might even have to confess where you were wrong. 

But here’s the upside about this thorn.  It is positive.  Although it hurts, it’s good.  And if we respond to it appropriately, we can be changed.  God uses this thorn to show us how we are not like Christ and if we won’t beat ourselves up because of it, we can break through our denial and make some changes.   

We all know the story of David.  He should have been out to war but stayed at home, saw a lovely young thing from his rooftop, ordered his servants to go get her, became intimate with her and then had to get rid of her husband, Uriah.  Well, Uriah wouldn’t play along.  David knew Bathsheeba was pregnant so he wanted Uriah to go home, be intimate with her and no one would know whose kid it was.  But Uriah wouldn’t play.  He wouldn’t go home and be with Bathsheeba so David had to get rid of him.  He sent Uriah back into battle and told his commanders to pull back and leave Uriah out there all alone.  They did just that and Uriah was killed.  CSI would have a field day with this one.  But there was no CSI back then.  Or wasn’t there.  You see the Holy Spirit always has been and always will be the greatest CSI there is.  The Spirit of God spoke to his prophet, Nathan and told him David’s plot.  Nathan confronted David and in 2 Samuel 12 we read of how Nathan confronted and convicted David of his sin by telling a story to David.  You can read it there. 

But what was going on inside of David before Nathan confronted him?  It probably wasn’t a long time before Nathan did confront him.  We know the mourning period was at least 7 days and when Bathsheeba heard her husband had been killed she mourned.  So it was at least 7 days before Nathan got there to confront him.  But we read in 2 Samuel 11 that after Uriah had died and the mourning period was over, David took Bathsheeba as his wife and she bore him a son. 

So if he felt any guilt, he sure did everything he could to distract himself.  And we might think he didn’t feel any guilt or conviction but we are wrong.  All we have to do is go to Psalm 32 this morning to see God had inserted a thorn of conviction into his soul. 

Notice he starts out by saying another beatitude in 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 is no deceit.”

David first tells us where he got to – a state of blessing – and then elaborates about this process of conviction and confession that leads to blessing. 

Deceit in verse 2 is an interesting word.  Rmiyah means the state or condition of causing something false to be believed as true and so mislead.  David realized that is exactly what he did and that God cannot bless deceit. 

But how did David get to that spot where he admitted to God and others what he did was wrong?  Why did it take him so long to respond in remorse and honest self-examination?

David had to learn that silence isn’t golden; it’s deadly.  Silence isn’t golden; it’s deadly. 

By denying what he had done, David was just like the original humans, Adam and Eve.  After eating the fruit, God shows up and they were hiding among the trees in the garden. God has to ask, “Where are you?”  Adam answered, “I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked so I hid.” 

David hid as well.  But he paid a price for it and so will we.  In Psalm 32, we see the price David paid for hiding from God, for not admitting to God and others what he had done. 

Verse 2 reads, “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through groaning all day long.”  Kept silent has the idea of doing nothing, not making any move toward God or those you have offended.  As a result of his doing nothing, look at what happens to him physically though.  He says, “My bones wasted away.”  Literally, his body was wearing out.  He aged significantly during this process.  All because he kept silent.  The word means to become obsolete long before it should. 

Silence isn’t golden; it’s deadly. 

But you say wait a second he didn’t sound like he was dying just aging. 

I believe David groaned all day long when he covered his sin because it literally hurt him physically.  Groaning has the idea of a long roaring sound of a lion.  This was not a sign of strength but a sign of distress.  He was close to death. 

David understood that God was chasing him down yet wouldn’t admit that he had done wrong.  He said in verse 4: “For day and night your hand was heavy upon me.”  And we expect the Lord to do the same with us if we don’t come clean.  The writer of Hebrews talked about this reality as well.  Hebrews 12:7 and 11 say this:  “Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons and daughters.  No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.  Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

David goes on to say that his strength was sapped.  Interesting word sapped.  Haphak in the Hebrew.  It means to be in a state or condition of physical weakness that could potentially threaten life.  We read in Psalm 22:15 where his strength has been dried up that he is close to death.  It’s the same idea here in Psalm 32.  The Lord’s hand was heavy upon him when he kept silent.  His bones wasted away.  He lost strength, groaned out of pain all day and came close to death.

Silence isn’t golden; it’s deadly.   

When Nathan confronted David in 2 Samuel 12 and when David in verse 13 admitted he had sinned against the Lord, Nathan replied, “The Lord has taken away your sin, you are not going to die.” 

John says in his first epistle chapter 5 verse 16 that there is a sin that leads to death.  He does not tell us what that is but I think it has something to do with hard heartedness and an unwillingness to admit what we did was wrong.  If it is serious enough, and we won’t confess it, God will take us home.  David was close to that point of being taken home by the Lord but he acknowledged his sin when Nathan confronted him. 

In verse 5 David says, “Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover my iniquity.  I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the guilt of my sin.”  To acknowledge, yada in the Hebrew means to admit publicly to something, usually a wrong.  And when David did that he was forgiven. 

The apostle John says the same thing in his first epistle, chapter 1, verse 9:  If we confess, admit our sins He (Jesus) is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 

But there is something to our confession as well.  Our motives are important.  Any confession like Pete Rose’s won’t cut it with God. 

In his autobiography in 2004, Pete Rose finally admitted that he bet on baseball games while employed as manager of the Cincinnati Reds—an infraction that produced a lifetime ban from the sport in 1989. Rose's admission of guilt came after denying any wrongdoing for almost 15 years.

And he has not stopped confessing, either. In September of 2006, he began using his website to personally apologize to each of the fans he had failed or offended. In fact, for only $299 (plus $4.95 shipping handling), Pete Rose will send you an autographed baseball that reads, "I'm sorry I bet on baseball."

The marketing copy on the website says: "Now you can get the baseball collectible everyone's talking about—Pete Rose's personal apology for betting on baseball, newly inscribed on an actual baseball—at a fantastic price."

No, that isn’t the kind of confession God is looking for.  Proverbs 28:13 tells us the kind of confession we need to make.  It says, “He who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.”

Simply calling them sin isn’t enough although it’s a start.  God wants us to renounce the sin as best we can.  We are to call it sin and ask God for the grace to not keep doing whatever it is.  Forsake means to abandon, reject or desert.  So we don’t confess to get forgiven so we can go out and sin again.  No, in our heart of hearts we reject that sin, we abandon it, we desert it, and we don’t want to do it ever again.  This must have been in David’s heart or God would have taken him home. 

St. Augustine said it best, “The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.”

God wants us to be like Mark Wilson, professional golfer, who called a two stroke penalty on himself because of something his caddie did. 

Wilson penalized himself in the second round after his caddie, Chris Jones, offered club advice to Camilo Villegas. The violation was hardly heinous, was witnessed by few and was gray-area enough to cause the rules official Wilson engaged to pause uncertainly.

Yet he never hesitated turning himself in, noting that if he went on to win the tournament, he would have been haunted by the white lie every time he looked at the trophy. Now consider that in 110 previous PGA events, Wilson had zero victories. So let's stack up the facts: 1) He punished himself for something his caddie did; 2) His caddie actually was attempting to help one of Wilson's opponents; 3)This came at a time when it seems that cheating is as much a part of sports as keeping score.

God desires a real live relationship with him.  God wants us to turn ourselves in to him and admit to him and others when we have fallen off the narrow way.  I think we don’t want to turn ourselves into God because gods don’t sin and after all, the caveat in the Garden of Eden was “you shall be as gods.” 

Sometimes it takes another person to confront us and break through our denial.  This has been true throughout history. 

During the Great Awakening, when the Spirit of God revived much of our nation's early faith, Jonathan Edwards was presiding over a massive prayer meeting. Eight hundred men prayed with him.

Into that meeting a woman sent a message asking the men to pray for her husband. The note described a man who had become unloving, prideful, and difficult.

Edwards read the message in private and then, thinking that perhaps the man described was present, made a bold request. Edwards read the note to the 800 men. Then he asked if the man who had been described would raise his hand, so that the whole assembly could pray for him. Three hundred men raised their hands.

Don’t remain in silence any more about your sin.  Confess whatever is eating at you to the Lord and then get together with a trusted friend and tell them where you fell off the trail.  A weight will be lifted off your chest for sure.  If you don’t have a friend you can do that with talk with me or Pastor Shannon or an elder or a Stephen Minister but admit where you have sinned to God and others. 

Then go and be an ambassador for Christ telling everyone you can about the forgiveness you have experienced in Christ.  Can you imagine what this fellowship would be like if we all realized that we were ambassadors for Christ and told everyone about the forgiveness we have in Him and Him alone? 

As Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:14:  For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.  And he died for all that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.  He wants to use you for his glory.  Confess your sins today.  Get your relationship right with him as David did.  Tell him and others where you have failed because silence isn’t golden; it’s deadly. 

And all God’s people said, Amen. 

Rev. Bruce R. Grentz, Senior Pastor