Latest / Fifteen Minutes With Fritz - Where Scripture Meets the Sidewalk / Don't be so stubborn!

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Don't be so stubborn! · Fifteen Minutes With Fritz - Where Scripture Meets the Sidewalk

• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: The psalm we're going to look at today on our 15 minutes with Fritz podcast is a good one.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's one of those psalms that speaks directly to situations we sometimes find ourselves in.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: For example, have you ever poured your heart out to God but heard nothing in return?
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Or have you ever felt that God's hand was heavy on you to the point that it affected you physically?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: And often these don't last for just a day or so but continue week after week until we're feeling just exhausted.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: These can be frustrating circumstances, and we would love to have some practical help to get us through them.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I want to encourage you because the author of today's Psalm, King David, faced these exact situations and he will provide us with good advice to overcome these feelings and get back on the right track.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: So open your Bibles to Psalm thirty two and let's seek encouragement for this particular daily grind.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Blessed is the man whose iniquity the Lord does not count against him, and in whose spirit is no deceit.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: When I kept silent my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: For day and night your hand was heavy upon me.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: My strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the guilt of my sin.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Therefore let everyone who is godly pray to you while you may be found.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Surely when the mighty waters rise they will not reach him.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: You are my guiding place, you will protect me from trouble, and surround me with songs of deliverance.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go, I will counsel you and watch over you.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle, or they will not come to you.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord's unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in him.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Sing all of you who are upright in heart.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: This Psalm is full of encouraging phrases.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered, blessed is the man whose iniquity the Lord does not count against him, and in whose spirit is no deceit.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: This, of course, is a central message of the entire Bible.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: God, because of his great love for us, sent his Son Jesus as the perfect sacrifice, and by believing in him we are forgiven.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Our sins are covered, and our iniquities are not counted against us.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Not because of anything we have done, but because of what Jesus did.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: And just in case you might be concerned that your particular sin might be outside of God's realm of forgiveness, notice that David uses three different words for sin transgressions, which conveys the idea of our rebellion or how we revolt against God, a kind of willful act of disobedience.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Sins, this is a general term most used most often in the Old Testament, and it means to miss the mark to miss the way to go wrong.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: Finally, iniquity is a darker term.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: It has the sense of wickedness and perversion suggesting it originates from a corrupted nature.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so whether we are rebelling or missing the mark or sitting in a darker valley of sinfulness, God promises to forgive us.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's encouraging.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: David continues this theme of encouragement throughout the entirety of Psalm thirty two.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: When the mighty waters rise they will not reach us.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: You are my hiding place, you will protect me from trouble.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: God will instruct us and teach us in the way we should go.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: God will counsel us and watch over us.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: These are all encouraging and comforting words.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: But interspersed in this psalm are phrases that, in spite of the encouraging words, David still found himself in a period of anguish and pain, and he didn't know why.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: He groaned before God all day long yet heard no response.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: He felt that God's hand was heavy upon him, tormenting him, as one translation puts it, and yet God was silent.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Does this sound familiar?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever gone through dark valleys like this?
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Of course we have.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: And oftentimes we plead with God like Job did, tell me what charges you have against me.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, we just want to know why we're suffering like this.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Even though we're surrounded with all of these encouraging words, our hearts are still heavy.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: What are we supposed to do?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Just when he was reaching the end of his rope when he felt he couldn't go on, David discovered the solution.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: So it wasn't a God problem, it was a David problem.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: The solution wasn't to continue to pepper God with questions about why he was going through such a rough patch, why he was experiencing such pain.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: The answer was unconfessed sin.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: David finally realized he had been harboring sin in his heart, which needed to be confessed and forgiveness sought from God.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Then and only then would he find relief from his pain.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: The good news is found at the end of verse five, and you forgave the guilt of my sin.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: How comforting is that?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Regardless of whether it's transgressions or sins or iniquity, when David confessed them, God forgave him.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you're walking through a frustrating valley right now, pause and ask God to show you any confessed unconfessed sin you might have.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Then confess it and ask for forgiveness.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: As I said before, this is a good psalm, an encouraging psalm, but there is one verse that I did not understand.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: David spent the majority of this psalm encouraging us.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: He also showed us to search our heart for unconfessed sin.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: So what verse didn't I understand?
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, in the middle of praising God, in the middle of reminding us that God will protect us and teach us and watch over us, David seems to go off the rails in verse nine.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Do not be like the horse or the mule which have no understanding, but must be controlled by bit and bridle, or they will not come to you.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: This verse seems to have no connection with any of the verses around it.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost as if David was carrying all the psalms he had written and was taking them to the copy machine, and when he came around the corner he bumped into someone and dropped all the pages all over the floor.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: He put them all back together in order, but somehow this verse got mixed up and ended up in Psalm thirty two instead of where it belonged.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Now, as unlikely as that scenario is, we still have to ask ourselves why did David include verse nine?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Was there a time that he acted like a stubborn horse or mule and needed to be redirected by a bit and bridle?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, actually there was.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: And to find it we need to go all the way back to the book of Second Samuel chapter eleven, where we will find David's stubbornness on full display.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: Now the chapter begins innocent enough.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: In the spring at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Raba, but David remained in Jerusalem.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: You see, the custom was that kings accompanied their armies when they went off to battle, but in this case David decided to stay at home, and that was the start of his troubles.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of his palace.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: From the roof he saw a woman bathing.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: This was the start of David's slippery slope.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: David sent messengers to get her, she came to him, and he slept with her.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: Then she went back home.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now things got really complicated after that.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: The woman, whose name was Bathsheba, conceived and sent word to David saying, I am pregnant.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: So David hatched a plan that he thought would get him out of his predicament.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: First, he invited the woman's husband, Uriah, who was fighting with Joab's army against the Ammonites.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: He invited him to come home from the battlefield, because he figured that after weeks away Uriah would come home, sleep with his wife, and that way her pregnancy would be considered normal and not the result of David's actions.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that didn't work because Uriah was a righteous man, and refused to sleep at home while his comrades were still on the battlefield.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: So David took his plan even further and deeper into the den of iniquity.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: He instructed Joab to attack the city, and when the fighting was fiercest to pull back and leave Uriah exposed, which he did, and Uriah was killed.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: Now that Uriah was out of the way, David took Bathsheba as his wife.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: The baby was born, and David was home free.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where the story might have ended if it weren't for these ominous words at the end of chapter eleven.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: The thing David had done displeased the Lord.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: So was this why David wrote in Psalm thirty two about how awful it was when he didn't confess this sin?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: How he needed to acknowledge what he had done and seek forgiveness?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, not exactly.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Because we have no proof that David actually realized the gravity of what he had done and approached God seeking his mercy and forgiveness.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: As we pick up the story in 2 Samuel twelve, we discover that David needed significant prodding before confessing his sin.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: God sent Nathan, who was David's spiritual advisor, to confront David, and Nathan didn't hold back.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: He laid it all out before David in no uncertain terms.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: This is what the Lord the God of Israel says.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: I anointed you David king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: I gave your master's house to you and your master's wives into your arms.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: I gave you the house of Israel and Judah, and if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes?
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's pretty direct, isn't it?
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: This confrontation convicted David and he said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: So do you see why David included verse nine in Psalm thirty two?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: He was warning us about his own stubbornness, about how he had refused to acknowledge his sin.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Very few people knew what he had done, and it appeared as though he got away with it, that is until Nathan showed up on his doorstep.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so he could write verse nine from personal experience.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: Do not be like the horse or the mule which have no understanding, but must be controlled by bit and bridle, or they will not come to you.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, don't be like me.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: Do you see how remarkable God's word is?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: All scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man or woman of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: Every verse has a purpose, even Psalm thirty two nine.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: Lord, sometimes we need a friend like Nathan to point us in the right direction.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for his courage to actually confront a king when he needed to hear the truth.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you for David's repentant heart.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: May we do the same.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve as God and Father.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: To him be glory and power forever and ever.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: This is the end of our podcast, but it's not the end of our story.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening.