Primary Diagnosis: Unbeliever (part 3)

Psalm 32:1-5: “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. 3 For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. 5 I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.”

King David made a choice to “confess my transgressions to the Lord” and he received forgiveness for his heinous sins of adultery and conspiring to murder Uriah. Isn’t that powerful!?! No sin is too big for the blood of Jesus!

There is no question that he obtained forgiveness from the Lord – though David battled the consequences of his sinful choices for the remainder of his life (i.e. his and Bathsheeba’s first baby died & his sons plagued him the rest of his life).

Had the DSM-IV been in existence in King David’s day, likely he would have  been diagnosed as “bipolar disorder” as secular psychologists would have attempted to treat his symptoms in Psalm 32. Maybe they would have medicated him for a chemical imbalance as well. In psalm 32, clearly King David was being ruled by his emotions that were produced because of his unconfessed sinful choices and thinking! Though he thought his sins were hidden, God knew and David knew how guilty of sin he was – and it made his “bones waste away.”

Imagine a man after God’s own heart diagnosed as “bipolar” and given psychotropic medications simply because he had unconfessed sin that was not being addressed. Today, sin is rarely diagnosed as the primary condition of a person. Sadly, repentance will rarely occur when someone is experiencing “out of control” emotions and told that it is a “mental illness” that is out of the person’s control.

Repentance can and should occur OFTEN for believers in Christ who can rest assured that the Lord hears their confessions of sin!

For an UNbeliever: if repentance does not occur, then the consequences for that unbeliever are clear according to 2 Thessalonians 1:8b-9: “those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might…” – all verses taken from The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 (electronic ed.). Good News Publishers: Wheaton.