Sin in many forms.
It is not only the psalmist who says, "I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord" (Psalms 32:5). It becomes us all to say, "We have sinned … we have committed iniquity" (Psalms 106:6). Sin takes many forms, as this psalm makes clear. We may be guilty of—
I. SINFUL FAILURE TO UNDERSTAND. (Psalms 106:7.) As the children of Israel "understood not God's wonders in Egypt," so we guiltily fail to recognize the wonderful working of the Divine hand, not only in human history and in domestic experience, but also in the daily and hourly ministries of nature, and in the ordering of our individual life (see James 1:16, James 1:17).
II. SINFUL FORGETFULNESS. (Psalms 106:7, Psalms 106:21, Psalms 106:22.)
1. We also "remember not the multitude of his mercies," oblivious of all that God has been doing for us and in us through all our days.
2. We are too ready to forget the special deliverances which, at the time of their occurrence, we resolved to keep continually before our eyes; we allow them to be hidden, and to disappear beneath the engagements and excitements that supervene.
III. THE SIN OF FITFULNESS. (Psalms 106:12, Psalms 106:13.) Is not the Divine Master grieved with us when he has to think of us as he did of his own apostle, who in a few hours passed from loud profession to positive denial (see John 13:36-38)? Spiritual fickleness is a very grave offence; it is also particularly injurious.
IV. THE SIN OF UNRESTRAINED APPETITE. (Psalms 106:14.) In this case it led to unhallowed importunity; to a request that became an impious demand, and that brought down retribution (Psalms 106:15). More often such "lust" of the flesh conducts to other evils—to bodily deterioration, to loss of self-respect, to injury wrought on others, to ruin and to death.
V. THE SIN OF ENVY. (Psalms 106:16-18.) To envy those who are distinguished from ourselves by the favour of God is most unworthy and culpable. Instead of being grateful to the Divine Giver for bestowing so great a blessing as a strong and helpful man, we cherish a spirit that is mean and selfish. It is a common but a serious sin.
VI. THE SIN OF IDOLATRY. (Psalms 106:19, Psalms 106:20, Psalms 106:28.) The guilt of idolatry is in the substitution of the creature for the Creator, rendering that honour to the visible or the human which is due only to the Divine (see Romans 1:19-25).
VII. THE SIN OF UNBELIEF; leading here (Psalms 106:24, Psalms 106:25) to discontent, to the loss of inheritance, to cowardly inactivity; leading, in our case, to the neglect of God's Word and will, to continuance in spiritual obduracy, to a fatal forfeiture of eternal life.
VIII. IMPERFECT OBEDIENCE, WARFARE, SEPARATION. (Psalms 106:34, Psalms 106:35.)