The Lord may graciously help
me, I return your prayerful attention to Psalm 51. And reading for
a text for this morning, verse 6. Although I do want to go through
this Psalm of David. Psalm 51, verse 6. Behold thou desirous truth, in
the inward part and in the hidden part thou shalt
make me to know wisdom. As the Lord helps me this morning
I want to first of all look at the background to this Psalm
51. We've just been reading, we've
just been singing of that beautiful hymn, one of my favourites on
the the smitten Israelites with the serpent. And what a gospel
hymn that is. And you see, in Psalm 51 we have
one of God's dear people, a sweet psalmist of Israel, one who had
been bitten badly by sin. And the results of sin had laid
him very low. And yet you see the glory of
the gospel is that he didn't need to go away and commit suicide. He didn't need to give up as
sadly Judas did. But he was one that
could come back to the very God he had sinned against and plead
for one thing, and that was for mercy. And this is the great
attribute of our God or one of his. A great attribute is he
is merciful. When God revealed himself to
Moses in Exodus 34, Moses said, show me thy glory. God comes
to Moses and says, behold, the Lord God, merciful and gracious. This was the title and this attribute
that he first gave to himself, as it were, in description of
who he was. where David comes back, you see,
to this God that is merciful. So I want to speak of the background,
then speak of what comes in these earlier verses before our text,
and then focus, God willing, on the fact that thou desirest
truth in the inward parts. David, as I said, was a very
highly favoured man of God, one that knew God, one that had tested
God and had proved Him before the lion and the bear. He was
one that knew that God would stand with him and put that to
the test with Goliath and stood very firm against all the enemies. And yet, this was the man, you
see, that also fell in the matter of Bathsheba, in that moment
of weakness, when instead of guarding his heart and concentrating
on the things of God, he was left to view Bathsheba. not turn away from it but carry
on and obtain Bathsheba so that he could commit adultery with
her and then went on to try and cover up his sin and ended up
having to kill Uriah to complete his cover-up. And for some time,
you see, David seemed to carry on in this wrong way. And it
seemed that not many people realized and he carried on. It seems unrepentant
and no doubt far off from God. And yet, you see, God had a purpose
of mercy to David. God loved David, and we read
clearly at the beginning of chapter 12 of 2 Samuel, and the Lord
sent Nathan unto David. What a mercy that God does not
leave his people when they fall, when they sin. He does not leave
them to continue in sin. But he sends a Nathan. And what
might that Nathan be? Well, it could be the reading
of God's Word that arrests us and shows us where we're wrong.
It could be many things that come into our lives that bring
us up. It could be a close friend that confronts us and asks us,
why are we doing a certain course of action? And the Lord sent
Nathan unto David and then gave this parable of the ewe lamb
and then applied it. David gave a strong judgment
against this man who had taken another man's ewe lamb. and yet
he had done something far worse. He had stolen Uriah's wife and
then killed him. And he had sinned greatly before
the Lord. So this is the background. And
we want to understand, this is vital to our understanding of
the psalm, that David had sinned and yet we each are sinners. You see, it says in John's epistle,
the first epistle of John, chapter 1 and verse 9, if we confess
our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. But it also says, if we say that
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. So if we can stand back this
morning and say, well it's a great mercy, I don't need to pray Psalm
51. I've never sinned against God
in this way. I've never, as it were, broken
his laws in that way. I don't need to pray Psalm 51. It's a sad place to be because
we need to realise that we all come short of the glory of God.
We are all breakers of the law of God and we all have one and
only one way to get back to God. One attribute of God that means
there is access back to God and that is His mercy. And if it
was not for His mercy then there would be no way back. You see
if you put God on a lower level and think that he's not so righteous
and not so holy, then you don't need such a merciful God. But
if you realise a right standard of his righteousness, then the
greatness of his mercy becomes much more into clear view. So we each need to realise that
we are sinners and God has left on record this confession if
you like, this private confession between David and his God, and
yet God has left it on record for you and I, so many years
later, to see the way David prayed, and for what David prayed, that
we may have a pattern, that we may come, when we have come short
of the glory of God, and pray these same words, as it were,
these same thoughts, these same expressions, that we may obtain
mercy and find grace to help in time of need. So the background. But then let's move on to the
earlier verses of this psalm. Have mercy upon me, O God, according
to thy lovingkindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender
mercies, blot out my transgressions. So he's asking God to have mercy
upon him. And if you go through the psalm,
His plea is simple. It's mercy. He never mentions
that because I am the sweet psalmist of Israel, because I killed Goliath
on behalf of Israel, because I am the king of Israel, because
many things I have done for the Lord. None of that appears in
Psalm 51. That is not the grounds of his
plea. The grounds of his plea is in
God. that God is merciful. And you
see that's the starting point you see of our pleading. We're
to plead that God is merciful. And it's not that we've got a
good upbringing, or we've had godly parents, or we've had many
privileges from a spiritual point of view, all of which I'm not
despising. But that is not the purpose,
that is not the ground of our plea. Have mercy upon me, O God,
according to thy lovingkindness. And he asks really for two things,
blot out my transgressions and wash me throughly from mine iniquities. The two sides of sin you see.
One side is the transgression that needs to be blotted out.
There's a record in heaven that stands against us as sinners.
And that needs to be dealt with. Otherwise the judge, who's a
righteous judge, will accordingly judge on that handwriting written
against us. And it will be a judgment of
eternal damnation. And David says, blot that out. Get hold of those writings, those
words that are written against us, righteously written against
us. We were truly guilty. But get hold of them and blot
them out. Blot them out so that they are
no longer against me. And how can a righteous God do
that? Well, that is his mercy, you
see, that he has transferred that guilt to his beloved son,
as we've just been singing of, see the Lord of glory dying,
see him gasping, hear him crying. This is all tied up with David
saying, blot out my transgression. God cannot blot out transgression,
except as a substitute. And the substitute was his only
begotten beloved son. blot out my transgressions. He wanted that record cleared
in heaven. But he also wanted to be washed
me throughly from my sin. This is more the sanctification
aspect. The same is in the first epistle
of John, chapter 1, verse 9. If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just to forgive us our sin. In other words, the
blotting out of our record in heaven, the justification. But
that's not the end. And to cleanse us. from all unrighteousness. There needs to be the work of
God in our hearts, cleansing us, sanctifying us, making us
right and ready for God. So he wants to be washed throughly
from his sin and cleansed from his iniquity. But in verse 3
it says, for I acknowledge my transgression and my sin is ever
before me. David here is not trying to Get
off the hook. He's not trying to say, well,
what I did really wasn't really my fault. It was somebody else's
fault. And if Bathsheba hadn't have
been there anyway, it would have never happened. He doesn't blame
other and second causes. He says, have mercy upon me.
He keeps talking about his sin, his transgression, the evil that
I have done. It's not like Adam and Eve in
the Garden of Eden when Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the
serpent. No. David is taking this as his
sin, for I acknowledge my transgression and my sin is ever before me.
So he acknowledges it, he confesses it. But then he goes deeper, and
in verse 4 he says, Against thee, the only, have I sinned and done
this evil in thy sight, thou mightest be justified when thou
speakest and clear when thou judgest. He's saying, But you
might say, well surely the evil was against Uriah, it was against
Bathsheba and it was against Israel as being an honourable,
he was the honourable king and was acting so dishonourably.
But here you see he sees that the sin is against, fundamentally
against his God. And this you see is where all
sin has a common, this is common to all sin. Nathan says in 2
Samuel 12 verse 9, Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment
of the Lord to do evil in his sight? This is the root evil. He's taken God's holy law and
he said, I want Bathsheba. I put the law to one side. I
put what God has said to one side because I want to satisfy
my lust. Wherefore hast thou despised
the commandment of the Lord? Against thee, the only, have
I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest
be justified when thou speakest, and clear when thou judgest.
So he's saying that when God judges him for his sin, God will
be completely righteous in his judgment of condemnation. So David realizes that it is
sin, it's his sin, It's against God, primarily, although of course
it did involve other people and it was sinful against other people.
But in verse 5 he says, Behold, I was shapen in iniquity. and
in sin did my mother conceive me. Now here David is going deeper
and saying I didn't have just this one problem that happened
on the rooftop with Bathsheba. I had a bigger problem. What
happened there comes out of a heart that is sinful and therefore
it's a manifestation of what I am. You see, that's something
deeper, not just to say, well, I'm basically good, but I had
this bad thing happen. But no, David's saying what happened
is an outworking of the fact that I'm a sinner. A fact that
I'm a sinner, not just because I act in sinful ways, it's because
I'm a sinner from my very core. And you see, this is a greater
realization of our need of a savior. Behold, I was shaped in iniquity.
and in sin did my mother conceive me. But in verse 6 you see we
have another behold. We have these two beholds side
by side. And the first behold is to behold
the iniquity and the sin that was David's. And the next, it
is a contrast. Behold, thou desirest truth in
the inward parts. So what David confesses that
he is, he confesses that he's sin to the very core, but But God is saying, what I want,
what I desire, behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts. You see, if David was only interested
in the external, you could have said that he could have stopped
after verse 3 in Psalm 51. He could have just said, well,
I acknowledge my transgression and my sin is ever before me.
I acknowledge it, I've done wrong, I've sinned, yes, there's a confession
that he agrees with that, and as far as the outside is concerned,
that could be the end. But you see, for David, the external
was one thing. But the problem was the external,
was started in the internal, and he is concerned about the
inside. He's concerned about his relationship
to his God. And this becomes very clear as
you go through the psalm. His prayer and his concern is,
take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Don't let me lose my communion
with the one I love. Yes, I've got all these outside
fruits of sin, but the worst fruit is that it's broken my
communion with the one I love. So then to come particularly
more to this sixth verse, Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward
parts. So God desires truth. And truth is not just abstract
facts. the truth about the fact that
Reigate's one and a bit miles or so down the road. That's a
truth, but it doesn't necessarily change our lives that much in
terms of how we think about things and our motives in life. It's
truth, but it doesn't affect the way we live, as it were.
But in Psalm 34, verse 18, no, sorry, not Psalm 34, 43, Psalm 43 verse 3, we have these words,
O send out thy light and thy truth. So the psalmist here is
asking the Lord to send out his light and his truth, let them
lead me Let them bring me unto thy holy hill. So truth in the
heart is not just some abstract facts, some Bible study that
we may have imbibed as it were, but has no reality in our lives. But no, we want to study the
Word of God so that it's deep in our hearts, so it affects
the way we walk. If coming to the house of God
and studying the Word and reading the Word, if it's just a load
of facts in our head but nothing in our heart, though it's profitable
to read the Word, it will not really do us a true good unless
it becomes truth. Behold, thou desirest truth in
the inward parts, and in the hidden part thou shalt make me
to know wisdom. God wants truth in the inward
parts. And you see, this is important
to understand that the standard of righteousness of God has not
changed. David didn't say, well, because
things have moved on and man's sinful now, so that God has lowered
his standard and lowered his requirements of what is required
of us. No. God does not, David does
not say that. The standard of righteousness
remains the same. Behold, thou desirest truth in
the inward parts. God wants us to have his truth
and his word and his glory to be deep in our hearts, the truth
of God, rather than the lies of this world. And which are
we following in our daily lives, in the decisions that we're making
day by day, hour by hour, in the things that we spend our
time on, in the things that we think about, the things that
we glory in? I ask you, is truth in the inward
parts? Is that what's motivating our
thoughts and our desires? You see, in that psalm that I
mentioned, Psalm 43, O send out thy light and thy truth, let
them lead me. It does something, you see. It's
not just an abstract fact that happens to be there. It's something
that does something. Let them lead me, let them bring
me unto thy holy hill. So that fact brings them, as
it were, to the house of God and to thy tabernacles. These
facts make me love the house of God. They make me desire to
be there. They give me a desire to be there.
These facts affect my walk therefore. But that's not the end you see.
In verse 4 of Psalm 43, then will I go unto the altar of God. Unto God my exceeding joy. So do you see there's a progression?
The truth makes the things of God precious, but just coming
to the house of God in itself is a blessing, but that's not
the end that David has in view. The end that David has in view
is communion with his God. That's what he wants. Oh, send
out thy light and thy truth. And you see, if we have, behold,
thou desirest truth. in the inward paths. That's what
God requires of us, that we have truth deep in our hearts, that
the Word of God is precious to us, and that that may guide our
thoughts and our minds. And how are we then going to
overcome temptation? You see, if we look at that which
took place with our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Matthew
chapter 4, we have the account of his temptation being taken
into the wilderness after his baptism. Matthew chapter 4, and
we read, then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness
to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted 40 days
and 40 nights, he was afterward and hungered. In other words,
Jesus knew the pain and the pangs of hunger. He was hungry. And
you know what it is to be hungry, to really desire food. It wasn't
a sinful desire. It was a natural human desire
to be fed with food. He had that pang, as it were.
in his heart to have food. And the tempter comes. And the
tempter basically was trying to get him to satisfy this desire
for food in a way that was not right, a way that did not glorify
his father. And the tempter came to him and
said, if thou be the son of God, command that these stones be
made bread. But he answered and said, it
is written, man shall not live by bread alone. This was it from
Deuteronomy. Jesus was saying, well Satan
was saying, you're the son of God, you've got all these privileges,
you can just turn these stones into bread, you can put to one
side the fact that your father's will was that you should go into
this temptation, and you can sort the problem out yourself.
You think of waiting in prayer. You might think, well, if Jesus
had all this power, why would he ever need to wait in prayer?
But you see, he did. He did not use his supernatural
powers that he was capable of in one sense. He became obedient
to his father's will. And it was his father's will
at this time not to give him food. He was going to be given
food soon and going to be fed. Angels were going to be supported
and he was going to be upheld. But it was not his father's will
to, at this time, have that food. And he was not going to break
God's word to achieve it. And you see, this, behold, thou
desirest truth, in the inward parts, the temptation comes.
Well, if you just do this, this will solve the problem. Whether
it's God's will or not, whether it's in line with what the Bible
says, we push that to one side. It satisfies the need of hunger.
Let's get on with it. No, you see, God is saying, thou
desirest truth. in the inward parts. And the
Lord Jesus did not deviate from his Father's will, even though
Satan put many plausible reasons. And this is, you see, truth operative
in our hearts. And that was the same when the
devil came and said, cast thyself down from the pinnacle of the
temple. It will be so impressive to everybody around you that
you've got this power and so forth. But that was not Jesus's
work or ministry. He was to be a humble servant
of the Lord. And he was not to, as it were,
impress people with stunts or things like that. No, and so
Jesus says, it is written, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy
God. So those words, you see, were
on Jesus' heart, that truth of God was in his heart, so that
when Satan came and said, why don't you do so and so, he was
able to then, from that truth that was upon his heart, able
to answer the devil and answer, as it were, His own thoughts,
as it were, that he would not do what Satan was asking him
to do. Although he did want food, he
did need food at that time, which was not wrong. And yet he did
not do it wrongly in that way. I think another example of this
is in Joseph. Joseph, who was tempted by Potiphar's
wife to commit adultery. And you could say it's a similar
situation in some ways to David. That he had an opportunity of
adultery, as David did. But when Joseph was subjected
to this great temptation, you see he had truth. in his inward
parts. The truth of God and what God
had said and what would really do him good was very much on
his mind. He was thinking the way God thinks. He was thinking that God is good
and what God has commanded is good and his law is good. David,
you see, at this time in his life had deviated and he thought
it would be better to have this short-term pleasure than to fulfil
the will of God in his life. Joseph says this, how then can
I do this great wickedness and sin against God? This is what
Joseph says to Potiphar's wife as she's alluring him and tempting
him to commit adultery with him. He, how can I do this great wickedness
and sin against God? Do you see? You might say, but
surely he would have been sinning against Potiphar and against
Potiphar's wife in some ways. But Joseph goes beyond those
and says, no, I'm sinning against God. Same as David when he says
in verse four, against thee, thee only have I sinned and done
this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be clear when thou
speakest. Justify when thou speakest, and
clear when thou judgest. You see, he acknowledged, he
recognized that the sin was against God. Behold, thou desirest truth. in the inward parts. And God
wants that truth. And in the hidden part, thou
shalt make me to know wisdom. Only God, you see, can make the
truth that we read and the sermons that we hear and the things that
come into our lives actually be in operation in our hearts. So that instead of just having
all these facts in our minds, that they become a very powerful
We read in John's Gospel chapter 8 that the truth shall make you
free. The truth shall liberate you.
The truth shall bring you out of the snares and temptations. as it did with Christ. He had
the word of God deep in his heart and the truth of God and therefore
when the tempter came with very many things which naturally,
as it were, his passion was to have his hunger quenched or satisfied,
yet he would not deviate from what God had said in his word. Behold, thou desirest truth.
in the inward parts and it was really a lack of this that caused
David to fall. David at that moment hadn't got
the law of God deep in his heart and therefore he was wondering
and when the temptation came his way, instead of doing what
Joseph did, how can I do this great evil and sin against God?
He, as it were, desired to have that himself. I think John Bunyan
described it like this. If you have, sitting in your
kitchen as it were, and there's a knock on the door, and you
open the door and it's Mr. Sin at the door. If you realise,
as soon as you realise who He is and that His intent is of
no good intent, He only wants to destroy you and ruin you and
cause you to fall, if you as it were shut the door in His
face, then you haven't sinned. As it were sin has come, you've
been tempted but you've not fallen. But on the other hand, if like
David, you see this temptation, this sin, comes at the door and
you say, come in and just come into the kitchen and we'll have
a talk and we'll have a little discussion about what you've
got to offer. Then you see we're indulging
that temptation. We are not doing what this says. Behold, thy desire is truth.
in the inward parts, the truth of God in the very inner core
of our hearts, which affects then our daily decisions, our
daily desires. But Lord, this is what God wants.
Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts. That's what
God wants. You see, it's a high standard.
We're evil to the very core by nature, but this is what God
desires. This is what David wants. the Lord to do for him. He realised
this is the standard and this is the way, as it were, to be
made right with God. He wants the Lord to, and then
of course his prayer goes on, purge me with hyssop. He realises
the oppositeness between what he is and what God desires and
therefore purge me with hyssop. Hyssop was used many times in
sacrifices, particularly we first read of it in the effect of putting
the blood upon the doorposts and the lintel of when they had
the Passover. It was to apply the blood. David
wants the blood to be applied to him. He wants the Lord Jesus
Christ and his great salvation to be applied. Well, then, as we have this before
us, this is David. This is one after God's own heart.
And when you fall into trouble, you see, this is not just to
have a Sunday morning thinking about David. He's now in glory,
but this record has been left so that what David passed through
can be a blessing to us today, so that we can find a way back
to God from the dark paths of sin. And God has left on record
one who was very, very close to him. A man after God's own
heart, he was described as. He was described as a sweet psalmist
of Israel. And we read later on that he
walked before his God all the days of his life apart from in
the matter of Uriah and Bathsheba. Apart from that, this was really
the blot in his life. But other than that, he was one
that walked with his God. But we have this so that we may
realize that there is hope. You see, if we are to come with
repentance, we are to come pleading for mercy, but how are we to
do it? Well, God has left this Psalm
51 as a worked example of what we should do. It's often like
that, isn't it, when you work? You learn facts about science
or about the topic that you're working with, and then afterwards,
perhaps at the end, they give an example of how that fact can
be used in real life. A real worked example of how
to apply it in a particular specific circumstance. We have that in
Psalm 51. You see, we have a worked example
of what we are to do. We're to come. We're to come
and plead upon God's mercy. We are to plead that he would
blot out our transgressions, that he would cleanse us from
our sin, the idea of needing to be blotted out at the record
in heaven, but also to be cleansed inside so that he may be washed
from the defilement of his sins. A realisation that when we sin
and when we confess it, we don't minimise what we've done, but
we explain it just as it is. We come not trying to say, well,
it wasn't that bad, and God is not too holy, and therefore the
gap is not too great, but David exposes it in its true separation
between what God requires and what David is. And you see, this
makes way, you see. This makes Christ to be precious. You see, all the way, all the
time you think you can get to God, and the sin that you have
committed is not so bad, and God is not so holy, and therefore
there's not such a gap between you and God, and there may be
some leniency or something. All the time we think like that,
you see, we don't realise our great need of a saviour. We don't
realise that there is the need of one to come and to stand in
our place. And as we had in that hymn, see
the Lord of glory dying, see him gasping, hear him crying. Remember, this was the same one
that at creation, he said, let there be light. And there was
light. the majesty, the greatness of
his voice. He created everything by the
word of his power. All of us, our complex bodies
and life as we know it, that scientists are trying to look
into the greatness and the wonder of how it all works and how it
all interlinks, that was all created by the word of his power. In a moment of time, this almighty
God that is in control of everything, Yet, you see, that same Lord
Jesus, as he was so august as it were, and so in control of
the creation, and he had just but to speak and it was done.
When it comes to the work of redemption, we do not read that
he stood and said, let there be redemption for those that
have sinned against me. And there was redemption. No,
we read that he left heaven's glory, he came to this earth,
he made himself of no reputation, took upon him the form of a servant,
made himself obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
So that we have this same one who commanded in creation, let
there be light and there was light. See the Lord of Glory
dying. See Him gasping. Hear Him crying. See His burdened bosom heave. You have now won, as it were,
the way of redemption. It was, as it were, a very hard
work for Christ to do. Yes, creation was, for Him it
was easy. He created and it was done. Although
we can't comprehend all that was done, it was an easy work
in one sense for Him. And yet the work of redemption
was one that cost him his beloved son. It was one that cost him
the most precious thing he had. See the Lord of glory dying.
See him gasping, hear him crying. See his burden bosom heave. Look, ye sinners, ye that hung
him. Look how deep your sins have
stung him. Dying sinners, look. and live. And this is the gospel,
you see. The gospel is for sinners. It was for David who had come
short of the glory of God, one who had had a good reputation,
one who had been greatly blessed and used of God, and yet one
that had fallen in this sad way, and yet one that was blessedly
restored, though the effects of his sin were with him for
the rest of his life. David, you see, had this pronouncement,
the sword shall never depart from thy house, and it didn't.
He had all the sadness of Amnon forcing Tamar, and then Absalom
killing Amnon, and then Absalom trying to take the kingdom, and
oh, it was a sad account of all that followed. And it was all
due to David's sin in this matter. And yet, in the mercy of God,
God has allowed it to take place so that we may have a glorious
worked example, as it were, of what God can do in restoring
somebody from all that sin and bringing him back to a right
relationship with the one that he'd sinned against. And this
is the gospel, the gospel that is for sinners. And we have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. We need to not go out, as
it were, and commit suicide. We do not need, as we see the
holiness of God, we do not need to give up, but we need to go
back to the one that we've offended and plead one attribute, and
that is his mercy, and pray that he would have mercy upon us and
make us all that we ought to be. Behold, thou desire is truth. in the inward parts and in the
hidden part, thou shalt make me to know wisdom. May the Lord have his blessing.