Suffering a Spiritual Stroke (Psa 39:10)
Introduction
I. Recognize the Warning Signs
A. From Within
Sin had shut his mouth. Here’s the sweet singer of Israel, but he has no song. Praise is dried up. Testimony is withered. Soul winning is stopped altogether. What has sin done to the child of God?
B. From Without
The devil, your enemy, is strategizing against you moment by moment by moment by moment; and like a shark, he wants to smell blood in the water. And, when you stumble, when you trip, when you fall, when you sin, what a delight it is!
Did you know that there are people who would love to see you fall into sin? Did you know there are people who’d love to see me fall into sin? They would. They’re enemies of the cross of Christ and the cause of Christ—would love to see, delight to see, some man of God, some woman of God, some teacher, some deacon, some leader, some evangelist fall into sin.
people didn’t want to be around him. You know what sin will do to you? Sin will make you hard to live with. Nobody wants to be around you. A Christian with a wounded conscience is hard to live with.
II. Receive Surgery and Rehabilitation
A. Remove Resistance (vs 7-8)
He knew that he knew that God would hear his prayer. He knew that God stood ready to forgive and to cleanse. I have said it often: you may disappoint God, you may break God’s heart, you may disgrace God—but there’s nothing you can do to stop God from loving you. He loves you.
Always, friend, believe that there is a God of glory, and the hope of cleansing is there if you want it. Nothing—nothing—can separate you from God’s mighty love, and there is no guilt His blood cannot wash away. Have I put that confidence in your heart? Does the Word of God—verse 15 (Psalm 38:15)—put that confidence in your heart? There is the sinner’s confidence.
Secondly, there must be the sinner’s contrition. That confidence must be inseparably and inextricably interwoven with contrition and brokenness. You must come to the end of your sin.
Nobody has ever repented until he’s sorry for his sin. There can be no repentance without sorrow. The Bible says it is “godly sorrow [that] worketh repentance” (2 Corinthians 7:10). There must be that contrition. You see, David is at the end of his rope. I mean, he’s had it.
what that literally means is, “I have no more confidence in self-effort. I’m not going to try to cover it up any more. I am genuinely sick of this.”
Clearly confess your sin to God. Make no excuses for your sin. I will be sorry for my sin. To confess means “to agree with.”
To confess your sin does not mean to admit your sin. You can admit your sin and not confess it in God’s sight of you. But, when you confess it, you admit it; but you go beyond the admission, and you judge it. You say about that sin what God says about it. You see that sin from God’s viewpoint. You say with God what God says about that sin. When you agree with God about it, when you come over against it and take sides against it, you have confessed that sin.
B. Go to Rehab
When I was a little boy, the Japanese dropped bombs on Pearl Harbor. Afterward, the United States rallied and won the war. Admiral Yamamoto—you remember him, Yamamoto? You know what he said later on? Here’s a quote, I want you to listen to it. He said, “I had intended to deal a fatal blow to the American fleet by attacking Pearl Harbor. I fear that all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” He said, “I thought this would destroy them, but all it did was just to fill them with a terrible resolve,” and they won the war.