"Blessed is the man … in whose spirit there is no guile. When I kept silence, my bones waxed old
through my roaring all the day long. 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. 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." (Psalm 32:2-7).

A man in whose spirit there is no guile is not a sinless person. There are no sinless people on
earth. There was one and that was our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, but since the fall of Adam there
has never been another. "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23).
There is not a just man that doeth good and sinneth not. "In many things we offend all." This is
true of believers as well as of unbelievers. Even believers offend in many things but the man in
whose spirit there is no guile is the man who is not trying to cover up and hide. He has owned up
that he is just what God says he is. As long as a man is covering his sin, there is guile there. When
David kept on covering his sin there was guile; but when David came out frankly and
acknowledged it and said, "I have sinned against the Lord," there was no more guile. . . .

In the next three verses David tells how he got to know this. He first tells of the time he did not
know it. "When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long." If there
is anything on earth that will make you feel like an old man it is unconfessed sin, trying to be so
nice outside while inside there is such a roaring going on. "For day and night Thy hand was heavy
upon me; my moisture is turned into the drought of summer." All his joy was gone; he was
desolate, and he could not stand it any longer, and so he says, "I acknowledged my sin unto Thee,
and mine iniquity have I not hid." He had been hiding it, but it brought him nothing but sorrow.

"I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord." And the very next thing is a free pardon,
"And Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." Have you been there? "If we confess our sins, He
is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).
Now everything is different. Now he is on praying ground. David says, as it were, "I could not
pray in those old days, but I can now." "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." Because he knows what it is to be forgiven, because he knows what it is to be without
guile, he can pray with glad, happy assurance and know that the Lord will protect him in every
time of trial.

See how beautifully he expresses himself in verse 7:"Thou art my hiding place; Thou shalt
preserve me from trouble; Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance." In verses 3
and 4, David was hiding from God, but in verse 7, he is hiding in God. Which are you doing? It
makes such a difference. Some of us remember when we were hiding from God and were very
miserable and unhappy; and then instead of hiding from Him we turned about-face and went
directly to Him to find our hiding place in Him.

"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy wounded side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and power."

(From Studies on the Psalms.)