The Awakening of the Sinner

The Awakening of the Sinner

June 28, 2006

Pastor Matt Black

Midweek Service

Psalm 38:1-8, 21-22

Discipleship: What are the Ten Commandments of God’s moral law?

(Quote them.)

Introduction: Open your Bible tonight to Psalm 38. We come this evening to a passage of Scripture that unveils a sinner’s heart as it is being awakened by the Spirit of God, so the title of tonight’s message is “The Awakening of the Sinner”.

[Read Psalm 38:1-21]

What I want to talk about is how a person knows he is being awakened by God. Our text is full of a sense of horror and terror as David ponders the state of his soul. David was comfortable enough at one time in his life, but here we see that he is awakened about his own sin, and feels about it like a man who awakens to find snakes slithering all around his bed and crawling all over him. He finds that his bed is a viper’s next and wrapped all around him are these venomous snakes. David feels trapped under his sin. He was totally unaware of it before, but now he is disgusted and his skin is crawling because of the filth his sins have put him in.

What we come to understand by David’s experience is that unless a person is awakened like this to the knowledge of sin, he will never know the Saviour. Until a man says “Woe is me for I am undone, I am a man of unclean lips” then his eyes have not yet “seen the King, the LORD of hosts (Isaiah 6:5). When a man sees the righteousness and holiness of God, it is then that he sees and realizes the massive extent of his own filthiness and depravity before God.

There is a time when sin and the judgment of God John Bunyan spoke of this kind of a thing in his book, the Pilgrim’s Progress. He says between the City of Destruction and that narrow Wicket Gate of salvation, there was the Slough, or “swamp” of Despond.

Jesus said in John 16:8 that the work of the Spirit of God is to “reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” David was in the sovereign grip of the Spirit of God when he wrote this Psalm. He felt the filth of his sin; he knew even his righteousness was “as filthy rags,” and he knew he would soon be standing before God on Judgment Day!

I. We see in this awakening of the sinner, first, a Rebuke from the Sovereign.

Look at what he says in verse 1: “O LORD, rebuke me not in thy wrath: neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.”

Before you and I were fine in our sin. We were resting comfortably, but suddenly we come to the realization that God is angry with us. We feel the “rebuke... [of His] wrath….” We feel that He is “displeased”. The first sign of conversion is that the Holy Spirit reproves of sin. You feel your sin. You have awoken to that nest of vipers slithering all over you, and you know that you will very soon die under the poisonous venom of your own sin. You agree with God’s rebuke that you are guilty, and that God has a very legitimate reason to be angry.

It is these kinds of people, burdened under the weight of their sin that Christ bids to come to Him. As Matthew 11:28 says, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

The great Puritan commentator Matthew Henry said this about Christ’s words here:

“All those, and those only, are invited to rest in Christ, that are sensible of sin as a burden, and groan under it; that are not only convinced of the evil of sin, of their own sin, but are contrite in soul for it; that are really sick of their sins, weary of the service of the world and of the flesh; that see their state sad and dangerous by reason of sin, and are in pain and fear about it, as Ephraim (Jeremiah 31:18-20), the prodigal (Luke 15:17), the publican (Luke 18:13), Peter's hearers [on the Day of Pentecost] (Acts 2:37), Paul (Acts 9:4, 6, 9), the jailor (Acts 16:29, 30). This is a necessary preparative for pardon and peace. The Comforter must first convince (John 16:8)…”[1] of sin, righteousness, and judgment.”

Do you feel at ease in your life? Then Christ is most certainly not dealing with you! Even if He called you with the voice of a mighty trumpet, you would not hear it. You are blind and deaf. You have no part in Christ. And though you may not feel His rebuke now, you will hear it on the Day of Judgment. You will either say with Peter (Luke 5:8), “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord,” or he will say on the Day of Judgment (Matthew 7:23), “depart from me, ye that work iniquity” “I never knew you.”

You will have NO PART with Christ until you FEEL your sin!!! Do you feel that you are under a load that you cannot bear? This is the work of the Holy Spirit of God. Spurgeon said this:

“When grace comes into the heart, one of the first things that attends it is a sort of undefinable fear. The man does not know how or why it is that he has such a fear; he felt safe enough before, but now the very ground under his feet seems to be rotten… He now begins to believe that there is a hell, that there is a just God, that sin must be punished, that he has sinned, and that, therefore, he must die.”[2]

Do you feel the rottenness under your feet? Do you sense the rebuke and displeasure of God? Do you hear God telling you tonight as in Ezekiel 18:20, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die”? Do you feel God’s rebuke? If so, it may be that God is awakening your soul. If you have never felt this rebuke, you cannot be saved, for you have never seen your sin as God sees your sin. How can you repent of something you do not detest? How can you repent of something that you do nothing about day after day? You know that God is angry, but you have not personally appropriated it. You have never felt his “wrath… [and His] hot displeasure.”

II. We see secondly that this awakening of the sinner by God brings Unrest to his Soul. Look at verse 2-3, “For thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore. 3 There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger; neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin.” Have you experienced this unrest in your soul?

Illustration: It is as if you are enjoying a wonderful steak meal. It is the best cut—Filet Minion or a T-Bone steak. You take the first bite and it brings you pleasure, until you notice a worm crawling on the side of it. You follow that maggot and you lift up the steak, and you see a whole nest of maggots under your meal. What once brought you pleasure you now makes your skin crawl with utter disgust! You have a feeling of unrest, and you begin to wonder what else you have eaten, and you have no appetite any more for what you once thought was so wonderful.

This is how it is when the Spirit of God works in the sinner’s heart. The sensuous songs of the world that once delighted the sinner now sicken him. The secret pleasures of darkness that you and I had freedom to partake now seem heinous and sinister and unclean.

Psalm 107:17, “Fools because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted.”

Application: Was there a time in your life when you were awakened to your sin so that you could not rest and your sin disgusted you? When you realized the poison and corruption of every sinful pleasure?

So we see there is a Rebuke from the Sovereign. We feel His “hot displeasure” as He awakens us. Then there is Unrest in his Soul. You see your sin as God sees it! Then thirdly, when God awakens a sinner, this spirit of unrest leads him to something else …

III. He senses the Burden of Sin. Look at verse 4, “For mine iniquities are gone over mine head: as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me.

When God begins to do a work in the soul, the guilt of sin becomes a burden. You will begin to feel hell and that you deserve it. It will terrorize you! Listen to how John Bunyan describes this experience in Pilgrim’s Progress:

”I dreamed, and behold, I saw a man clothed with rags, standing in a certain place, with his face from his own house, book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back. I looked, and saw him open the book, and read therein; and as he read, he wept and trembled; and not being able longer to contain, he brake out, with a lamentable cry, saying, ‘What shall I do?’”[3]

Now, let me be clear: all men have this overwhelming burden of sin upon them that is so great that it will crush them and bring them eventually down to hell and the second death. But when God grants mercy to a sinner to see his sin, he realizes this burden. It is, as David says, “too heavy” for any mortal to bear.

We may try by indulging in other sins to try and get away from this heavy conviction, but we cannot. We must say with David in Psalm 51:3, “I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.”

So we have seen what this awakening from God brings: the Rebuke from the Sovereign, Unrest in the Soul,the Burden of Sin, and then fourthly…

IV. This awakening brings a Loathing of Self. Look at verse 5, “My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness. 6 I am troubled; I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long. 7 For my loins are filled with a loathsome disease: and there is no soundness in my flesh. 8 I am feeble and sore broken: I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart.”

Once you may have thought that God would be unjust to cast anyone in hell. You may have said “How can a God of love cast a soul into hell?” Your eyes now have been opened to your own sin, and you realize that not only is God just to send sinners to hell, but He would be just to send you to hell! Nothing would be too severe for your sins or my sins. We see the holiness of God, and we the disgusting nature of our sin: (verse 5), “My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness…” The conscience is no longer seared. It used to be that you could just go sin more or turn on a movie or drink your guilt away, but now your conscience is so strong that everything you do “stinks”! You smell your sin like a drunk who has awoken from an all night binge and he smells his vomit. It is disgusting. You loathe yourself! You weep and cry because their seems to be no answer. With David you say (verse 8), “I am feeble and sore broken: I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart.”

Spurgeon testifies to this kind of experience in sinners:

“Loathing thus himself and his life, his sin and his pleasures, and loathing even his very existence, the man, if left to himself, will often undergo such terror of conscience that even his body will begin to feel it. His mortal frame, sympathizing with his immortal spirit, will grow sick. There have been some, with whom I have myself had to deal, who have had sore sickness through conviction of sin, and, for a little season, it did seem as if the only hope for them to be able to live at all was for them to find immediate pardon through the blood of Jesus Christ.”[4]

Not everyone goes through this kind of experience at conversion, but there is always some great sense of self-loathing and realization of sin. The thicker the darkness, the brighter the light! As Romans 5:20, “Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound…”

V. Fifthly, this awakening brings the Salvation of the Soul. For sake of time, skip down to verses 20-21, “Forsake me not, O LORD: O my God, be not far from me. 22 Make haste to help me, O Lord my salvation.”

“Let me remind you, who are in terror because of sin, that; the only way to escape from that terror aright is to flee at once to Jesus.”[5] You need to “flee from the wrath to come”!

If this is the state of your soul, Christ bids you to come! As Matthew 11:28 says, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Revelation 22:17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

Conclusion: Dear friend tonight, has God awakened you to your sin? If Christ has made you willing, then repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and “thou shalt be saved!” Isaiah 45:22, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.”

And then look at verse 29 of Matthew 11, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.”

Has God awakened your soul to sin? Run to Jesus!

Closing Hymn: 639 Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus

[1] Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible. See his comments on Matthew 11:28, [emphasis mine].

[2] Charles Spurgeon, Cases of Conscience. Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit. Message published November 24, 1904.