Psalm 51:9-12

“Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence; and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of your salvation; and uphold me with your free Spirit.”

— Psalm 51:9-12

All religion that excludes as its basis the state of mind portrayed in these words is as the shell without the pearl, the body without the spirit. It has ever been a leading and favorite scheme of Satan to persuade men to substitute the religion of man for the religion of God. The religion of man has assumed various forms and modifications, always accommodating itself to the peculiar age and history of the world. But we have observed that the religion of man—be its form what it may—has ever kept at the remotest distance from the spiritual; everything that brought the mind in contact with truth, and the conscience and the heart into close converse with itself and with God, it has studiously and carefully avoided; and thus it has evaded that state and condition of the moral man which constitutes the very soul of the religion of God—"the broken and contrite heart."

The state of holy contrition described in these words of David mark an advanced stage in the experience of the spiritual man; a stage which defines one of the most interesting periods of the Christian's life—the Divine restoring. David was a backslider. Deeply and grievously had he departed from God. But he was a restored backslider, and, in the portion we are now considering, we have the unfoldings of his sorrow-stricken, penitent, and broken heart—forming, perhaps, to some who read this page, the sweetest portion of God's word. But of the truth of this we are quite assured, that in proportion as we are brought into the condition of godly sorrow for sin, deep humiliation for our backslidings from God, our relapses, and declensions in grace, there is no portion of the sacred word that will so truly express the deep emotions of our hearts, no language so fitted to clothe the feelings of our souls, as this psalm of the royal penitent: "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your loving-kindness: according unto the multitude of Your tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions; and my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight: that You might be justified when You speak, and be clear when You judge." Thus upon the altar of God he lays the sacrifice of a broken heart, and seems to exclaim, "Wretch that I am, to have forsaken such a God, to have left such a Father, Savior, and Friend! Has He ever been unto me a wilderness—a barren land? Never! Have I ever found Him a broken cistern? Never! Has He ever proved to me unkind, unfaithful, untrue? Never! What! did not God satisfy me, had not Jesus enough for me, did not a throne of grace make me happy, that I should have turned my back upon such a God, should have forsaken such a bosom as Christ's, and slighted the spot where my heavenly Father had been so often used to meet and commune with me? Lord! great has been my departure, grievous my sin, and now most bitter is my sorrow—here at Your feet, upon Your altar, red with the blood of Your own sin-atoning sacrifice, I lay my poor broken, contrite heart, and beseech You to accept and heal it."

"Behold, I fall before Your face; My only refuge is Your grace. No outward forms can make me clean; The leprosy lies deep within."

Such is the holy contrition which the Spirit of God works in the heart of the restored believer. Brought beneath the cross, and in the sight of the crucified Savior, the heart is broken, the spirit is melted, the eye weeps, the tongue confesses, the bones that were broken rejoice, and the contrite child is once more clasped in his Father's forgiving, reconciled embrace. "He restores my soul," is his grateful and adoring exclamation. Oh what a glorious God is ours, and what vile wretches are we!