In his sermon on Romans 4:6–8, Stephen Davey explains how Paul uses King David as an illustration of God’s forgiving grace, showing that even Israel’s greatest king was justified not by works but by confession and faith. Davey opens by describing the modern impulse to cover up sin—denying guilt, blaming others, minimizing wrongdoing, or redefining sin altogether—an instinct that began with Adam and Eve. He then walks through David’s own cover-up recorded in 2 Samuel 11–12, from adultery to deceit to the arranged death of Uriah, highlighting how David’s guilt only intensified the longer he hid it. When Nathan confronted him, David finally confessed, later writing in Psalm 32 that God forgave “the guilt of my sin”—a passage Paul quotes in Romans 4 to declare the blessing of the one whose sins are forgiven and whose iniquities are covered by God, not by human excuses. Davey concludes that true freedom comes when sinners stop hiding and allow God to cover their sin with His grace, the only basis on which anyone is justified.
The Cover-up
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