Psalm 51, we actually covered
an introduction and part of the verses in this Psalm, but let
me read this with you. Psalm 51, beginning at verse
one. Have mercy upon me, David says,
and you know the circumstance was his sin against God in the
adultery with Bathsheba and in the murder of Uriah, not to mention
the abuse of his power the abuse of all the blessings God gave
to him, lavished upon him, and the the damage he did to the
name of God in the minds of the people, not that he could damage
God himself, but in their minds and in their thinking, he undoubtedly
brought great reproach on the name of God, because by his sin,
he disregarded all of God's goodness. And though he professed to be
trusting on Christ, he acted in this way. And so this is a
lesson to us all. Trusting Christ doesn't make
us want to sin more. It makes us aware of the painfulness
of the shame of our sin against God and our guilt and our dependence
upon him to forgive us. And so we'll get into that a
little bit more as we go on this. So David was in that case and
he prays, have mercy upon me, oh God. Not according to anything
in David, but according to God's loving kindness. He says, according
to thy loving kindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender
mercies blot out my transgressions. Not only not considering what
David did, but considering God's name and his character, but also
in proportion to God's loving kindness, in proportion to God's
many tender mercies. The forgiveness of sins requires
an immeasurable and unspeakable, incomprehensible stoop on God's
part to do what He requires in order to put away our sins. And
that can only be measured by the cost to God it took to put
away our sins in the Lord Jesus Christ. So David is praying according
to God's mercy. And sometimes we think that it
would be inappropriate for us to ask God to do something so
great as to forgive our sins. But God reveals in Exodus chapter
34, verse 6 and 7, that it is His glory to forgive sins. It is the glory of a man to forgive
sins. It's much more the glory of God. Because for us, for you and me,
when we forgive one another, or if we forgive anybody for
what they've done wrong against us, we can overlook it. But if God forgives sin, he has
to put it away. And that's something that we
really don't understand when God takes away our sin. He lifts it from us and he takes
it away. It means, as we're gonna see
here in verse nine, that he himself puts it away from his own face. He hides it from his own face.
And for God to hide something from himself means he completely
puts it away. And that's something we should
stop and really ponder that God in this mercy, his tender mercies
and his loving kindness, not only overlooks, but he takes
away our sin and puts it away in the blood of his son. All
right. Verse two, David goes on, and
this is inspired by God himself, by the Holy Spirit. Wash me thoroughly
from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. I can't help
but point out the fact that everything that David asks God to do here
is putting a burden on the Lord Jesus Christ, because this cannot
happen except by him. Wash me, the saints in Revelation
1, 5 said, unto him who loved us and washed us from our sins
in his own blood. That's it. That tells us how
God puts away sin in the blood of his Son. He washed us. If
you remember, the Apostle Paul was told by Ananias, when the
Lord Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus, And he
told Paul, arise, be baptized, washing away your sins. Baptism
doesn't wash away sins, but it points to Christ who did, by
his unspeakable stoop, to bear our sins under the wrath of God.
And that is our baptism in him that washes away our sins. Physical
baptism points to that. So here he asked the Lord to
thoroughly wash him, leave nothing undone, wash me thoroughly, cleanse
me from my sin. He goes on, verse three, I acknowledge
my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. This is the
work of God. God made David know his sin. God made David acknowledge his
sin. And sometimes we, I know in my
life I've heard other people confess their greatness of their
sins and I wonder how I haven't really felt the greatness of
my sins at times. And at other times I do. But
we should never measure our sin against God by the feeling we
have for our sin. We should only measure the severity
of our sin and the greatness of it in terms of the evil of
our sin by the cross. If we understand that, then we
will see how horrible our sin is. It's not a tragedy so much
against people. It's not a horizontal problem,
it's a vertical problem. Our sin is against God only.
So he goes on, verse four, against thee, thee only have I sinned
and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified
when thou speakest and be clear when thou judgest. God will be
just. He can't do wrong. Everything
God does is right. The measure of right is God himself. There's no standard outside of
him. So whatever he thinks, Whatever he does, that's right. And God
will always be justified in whatever he says and whatever he does.
But David now, being convicted by God's grace through the prophet
Nathan, he himself wants to justify God. He does not want to try
to escape or defend himself. Remember, Adam did that. It's
our natural response to being accused. is to shift the blame. The woman that you gave me, she
gave me of the tree and I did eat. That's what he said. In
other words, ultimately, it was God's fault. But David makes
no such shifting of the blame here. I did it, he said. It was my doing. It was evil.
It wasn't light. It was evil. And he says all
this so that God would be justified. His desire is that there would
be no reproach to God, but that he would be clear when he judges.
And that that's a desire that we have. We don't want to bring
shame to our savior. And remember, David now in this
psalm was a believer when he sinned. And that speaks volumes
to us also. It reminds me of that verse in
1 John chapter 2. He says, I write these things
unto you, little children, I write these things unto you that you
sin not, that we can be forgiven by God. That's what he was writing
about, that our forgiveness is by The Lord Jesus Christ, his
cleansing blood in 1 John 1, verse 7. The blood of Jesus Christ,
his son, cleanses us from all sin. And if we confess our sins,
he says in verse 9, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. God has so put away our sins
that his justice is magnified. But he goes on in 1 John 2 and
he says, I write these things unto you, little children, that
you sin not. But if we do sin, or you could
find places where it's translated when, when we sin, we have an
advocate with the Father, Christ Jesus the righteous, and he is
the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also
for the whole world. So, Out in the whole world, there's
only one propitiation, it's the Lord Jesus Christ. Though He's
not the propitiation for every sin of every person in the world,
He is the propitiation for the sins of His people throughout
the world. And that's what He's speaking
of in 1 John, because He's the advocate of His people, and He
only advocates for those that He saves, those He justifies.
those he makes intercession for, and John chapter 17, he says
he does not pray for the world, but for those the Father gave
to him. So here, David is desiring God
to be justified, not at the expense of justice or righteousness or
truth by any means, He wants the world to know that it was
his problem, not God's. That if he's condemned, God is
right and fair in doing that. And that's our problem is that
we see God blessing other people and we think God isn't fair because
he doesn't bless me like them. We have those silly thoughts.
It's seen in children, small children. One child has a toy,
the other one wants it, and they immediately start winding up
the complaint. And their cries increase in intensity
and in pitch. And pretty soon everyone has
drawn their attention to the child who is complaining because
they don't have what the other child has. and then a fight breaks
out and mom and dad have to step in. That's just the way we are
by nature. We complain when other people
seem to get more than we have or want. That's covetousness. That's accusing God of not being
fair. In other words, it's an attitude
of entitlement on our part that we really deserve more than we
get. But David is not like that here.
He has sinned. He has no currency with God. He has none. He's requiring, I mean, he's
relying entirely on God to show him mercy for Christ's sake alone. And that's the attitude of one
taught by God. When God teaches us, he begins
with teaching us about our sin. And then he doesn't leave us
there. He teaches us about how he dealt with our sin in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And he directs us to him to look
upon him. All right, verse five. Behold,
I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive
me. The problem didn't just start
with my most recent sin. This is an endemic. This is an
intrinsic problem. It's inherent in my character. It's a flaw in me and I'm to
be blamed for it. There's nothing in me that God
could desire. I was shapen in iniquity. I was
conceived in sin. I inherited this from my parents.
They were sinners before me. But what I have is all my fault.
Just consider myself. Everything I do, the choices
I make, are full of sin. My thoughts, my motives, my intents,
my words, my actions, it's all riddled with sin. Sin is part
of me in everything. The good that I would, I do not,
but the evil which I would not, that I do." And that's the cry
of a believer. I was shapen in iniquity. Oh,
wretched man that I am. Isaiah said, woe is me, I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean lips and
I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. And Job said,
I'm vile. Behold, I am vile. And I lay
my hand upon my mouth and I don't speak. I can't say a word in
my defense. Peter says, depart from me, Lord. I'm a sinful man. And we could
go on and on throughout scripture. The apostle Paul says, that Christ
Jesus, he thanks Christ Jesus that he had mercy upon him because
he was the chief of sinners. He had gone about persecuting
the church and doing all sorts of evil against the body of Christ
and yet the Lord had mercy upon him. and he had mercy upon him
in spite of the fact that he was a sinner. So, as I said,
this is the first work. And the second work is that God
points us to Christ and gives us faith in him by the life-giving
operations of the Spirit of God. Verse six, behold, thou desirest
truth in the inward parts and in the hidden part thou shalt
make me to know wisdom. Now, wisdom is that is in the
Lord Jesus Christ, isn't it? First Corinthians chapter 1 verse
23 and 24. Christ, the wisdom of God and
the power of God. Isn't that the wisdom of God?
And so God Notice how he brings good out of our evil here. He teaches us wisdom right smack
dab in the middle of our fall in sin. He says, behold, thou
would desire is truth in the inward parts. What God desires,
God performs. If God desires truth in his people,
then he's going to work truth in them. And the truth that God
teaches us is the truth about ourselves and the truth about
himself, the truth of his salvation about the Lord Jesus Christ.
What is the truth about ourselves? Well, the truth that we learn
about ourselves, and it seems like a truth we can't ever quite
really reach the end of learning. We're constantly learning it
over and over, day by day, is that I am nothing but sin. And the truth about Christ is
that He has no sin. He did no sin, and Him is no
sin. But He was manifested to put away our sins. That's the
truth about Christ. That's God's character. That's
God's heart, His will, His purpose. That's God's glory. And so that
truth is taught to God's children in the inward part because he
teaches them. Verse seven, purge me with hyssop
and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter
than snow. Now, just as I mentioned last
time, God told Moses to tell the children of Israel, you sprinkle
the blood of the lamb on the post of the door and on that
header of the door. And when God sees the blood,
he will pass over you. All that were in the house were
passed by. God passed over them because
God saw the blood. Every believer takes deep comfort
and constant recourse to that truth that my
salvation is because of what God sees of Christ. It's not because of what God
sees in me or what he sees I might be. or what I think, none of
those things. It's because of what God thinks
of Christ. That is all of our salvation.
And that is the lesson God teaches his people in the midst of their
sin, so that when they learn that they're a sinner, they have
nowhere else to turn. They're absolutely vulnerable.
like a dog on his back and his belly exposed to its enemy. They're
vulnerable to every enemy of their soul that is brought upon
them from the hand of God because of their sin. And yet they're
caused by God's grace to look upon Christ and see in Christ
that God not only put their sins on him, but poured out his wrath
on the Lord Jesus. And that act of Christ was an
act of obedience of such magnitude that it absolutely fulfilled
the law, an act of love, an act of self-sacrifice, an act that
glorified God in all of his perfections and God rewards his people who
in Christ fulfilled the law by his own death and his obedience
and his sacrifice of himself to God. What an amazing gospel
we have. And so he says, purge me with
hyssop. That's what the hyssop was used to do. Sprinkle that
blood. Cause the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ to be my Passover,
that you would pass over me and sprinkle that upon my conscience. In Hebrews chapter nine and verse
12, he says, the Lord Jesus Christ entered into the holiest with
his own blood and obtained our eternal redemption. and that
God sprinkles that blood upon our conscience and that sprinkling
of Christ's blood on our conscience makes our conscience clear so
that we're given boldness to enter into the holiest by the
blood of Jesus. Here, he's praying for that.
Lord, apply the blood to me because you applied it to my record in
heaven. You applied it to your own memory
of my sins and put them away in Christ's blood. Verse eight,
make me to hear joy and gladness that the bones which thou has
broken may rejoice. When God afflicts a person, a
child of God, he causes them to feel their sin against God. And that sense of sin in us is
a most painful thing. He describes it here as bones
which have been broken, a very painful thing. The surgery I
had recently, I couldn't move without sharp pains. And all
you can do is just be still, because any movement at all,
and you feel it. I can't imagine what that's like
when bones, multiple bones are broken, but that's what the sense
of sin does when God applies his hand upon us, his chastening
hand. But he asked God to show him,
to cause him to hear joy and gladness, because that's the
only way the bones that he has broken may rejoice. Now, we are
the circumcision which rejoice in Christ Jesus in Philippians
3, verse 3. Rejoicing is the effect of the
application of Christ's blood to our conscience by the Lord,
by the Spirit of God. By God's grace, he shows us Christ,
and he shows us that everything God needed to do in order to
propitiate his wrath, to satisfy his justice, to fulfill his righteousness,
to make known his wisdom, to lavish his grace, everything
that he desired out of his love that was stronger than death
towards his people who he chose in Christ, everything, He did,
and it required an almighty power on his part to meet everything
God required because of our sin, that it required the Lord Jesus
Christ himself to give himself, the Son of God, to give himself
as Son of Man for us. And this is the amazing grace.
This is why Christ is seated in heaven, because he accomplished
that work. Knowing that gives us the greatest
possible joy. When we think about faith, when
we think about what it means to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, we're constantly thinking about the mental activity that
goes on within us. But when we understand what faith
really is, we realize that faith, God-given faith, is given to
us so that we see that all of our hope is Christ himself, Christ
alone. And we realize that this is God's
gift to us when we ourselves feel vulnerable, that all we
have is Christ, and that if he fails us, we have no hope. There's
no one else who's going to save us. And we can't certainly save
ourselves. So that sense of being exposed
Unless Christ has mercy upon us and by His grace covers our
sin, that makes us feel very vulnerable, doesn't it? In fact,
I was thinking the last few days about how our enemies are exceedingly
stronger than we are. If you took Satan himself and
just left us alone to his desire for a moment, the cruelty and
the torments that he could inflict upon us are beyond our understanding. But the Lord Jesus Christ withholds
that. He's the only one who keeps us
from being consumed by the enemies that we, by our sin, brought
from God's hand upon ourselves. That is mercy. That is grace.
So realizing that now, we realize that being so dependent on the
Lord Jesus Christ and having only Him as our hope, that this
is true faith because we're left with nothing but what God thinks
of Christ. We're left with nothing but what
Christ does by His will, according to His merit and by His work. It's Him or nothing. It's Him
alone and nothing else. And we've been brought to that
by God's grace. And so when we realize that,
though, we realize something else is that unbelief is everything
but that. We often look for some confidence
in whether or not we have this subjective mental activity of
faith. But the real assurance and the
real confidence comes when we realize that we have no strength
at all, and that Christ has to be all of our strength. But here's
the flip side of it. When we do find Christ to be
all of our strength and all of our merit before God, that God
himself says, having therefore brethren boldness to enter into
the holiest by the blood of Jesus, then we realize that since Christ
is our all, there's no room for doubting. There's no room for
a lack of assurance. There's no room for a lack of
confidence because our confidence and our assurance are all him. And he can't fail. He certainly
has, I mean, God certainly has accepted him and enthroned him
and given him everything in heaven and earth and power to do whatever
he wants to because he so magnified all of God's perfections and
saved his people in his own sacrifice of himself for them. Now, that
causes us joy and gladness. Though we have sinned and we're
sorrowful for our sin, the joy and gladness comes when we realize
Christ is the propitiation for our sins. He is our all. The
other thing I'd like to point out here is that the blood of
Jesus Christ, now, realize this, God has never, not once, not
in one case has God ever forgiven a sinner. that he didn't do it
apart from the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Acts 4, verse
12, he says, there is none other name under heaven given among
men whereby we must be saved. And in Ephesians 1, 7, he has
redeemed us by the blood of Christ, and that is the forgiveness of
our sins. And we could go on and on and
quote that. So the Lord Jesus Christ alone, his precious blood
alone washes us from our sins in God's sight. And as we read
here in verse nine, I just want to read this next verse. He says,
hide thy face from my sins and blot out all mine iniquities.
God not only passes by, as I mentioned earlier, he literally takes our
sins away, literally. He put our sins. Actually, really
and truly, He made our sins to be put on and born by the Lord
Jesus Christ. First Peter 2.24 says, who his
own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree. It was
a real substitution. It was a real transference of
sin from God's people to Him. And in putting those sins on
the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus fully put them away in
His death. That's why He was raised from
the dead for our justification. All right, what I'm going to
get to now is the fact that the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
has done everything for us, and because it's done everything
to God. And consider these things with me. In 1 John 1, verse 7,
the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. So there you
have it. His blood is the cleansing of
our sin. In Hebrews chapter 10, it says,
Christ's blood made remission for all of our sins. So the blood
of Christ makes remission. He puts it away. He forgives
it. It's washed from us. And then in Hebrews chapter 10,
verse 17, because Christ's blood made remission, God does not
remember our sins anymore. They're remembered no more. Now
that was by God's design and Christ shed his blood. And because
of that, God does not remember. He doesn't have to work at it.
He doesn't have to say, well, it's trying to come back to my
memory, but I'm going to put it out of my mind. He received
a full payment, a full putting away of our sins, like the scapegoat
sent out into the land uninhabited by the fit man. God sent our
sins away on the head of Christ into the land uninhabited, the
land of God's forgetfulness, as far as the east is from the
west, according to Psalm 103. All right, so God doesn't remember
our sins. He made full remission and cleanses us and forgives
us of our sins all by the blood of Jesus. And in Romans 5, verse
9, it says that we are justified by the blood of Christ, which
means we've been made righteous. Not only were our sins taken
from us, so that we never sinned. By Christ's work, we never sinned. Our sins were taken away. God
remembers them no more. Everything that we've done was
a sin against God. If God has put it away, if it's
out of His mind, it never happened. Not only that, but His blood
justifies us. It not only cleanses us, but
it establishes for us a righteousness. a clothing like God did when
in Genesis 321 where he clothed Adam and Eve who were naked in
their sin. He clothed them with the skins
of an animal. So God clothes his people in the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ, that righteousness which is by his blood. He was
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Then also,
not only does His blood justify, but it redeems us. 1 Peter 1,
verse 18, you were not redeemed with corruptible things like
silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ. And
we could talk about that a long time, but it says in Hebrews
10 and 13, 1010 and chapter 13, verse 12, that
the blood of Jesus Christ sanctifies us. By the witch will, we are
sanctified by the offering of the body of Christ. We were made,
we were perfected forever by the offering of the body of Christ,
by the will of God. Christ offered himself and that
is our sanctification. And then, so he's not only justified,
redeemed, and sanctified, forgave us, remitted our sins, and made
our sins to be remembered by God no more, but the blood of
Jesus Christ also brings us near to God, so near that we are as
near to God as he. In Ephesians chapter 10, Two,
it says, remember that you being in time past Gentiles in the
flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called circumcision
in the flesh made by hands, at that time you were without Christ,
being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from
the covenants of promise, having no hope. without God in the world,
but now in Christ Jesus, you who sometimes were afar off,
listen, are made nigh, brought near by the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ, for he is our peace. God's justice said, away. Our sins, as it says in Isaiah
59 too, have separated between us and our God. But God in Christ
has brought us near by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
reconciled us. So the blood of Christ brings
us near to God. So near that we are as near as
He. And this is a song, a hymn. It
goes like this, he said, A mind at perfect peace with God? Oh,
what a word is this! A sinner reconciled through blood? This indeed is peace. By nature
and by practice, far, how very far from God! Yet now by grace
brought nigh to him through faith in Jesus' blood. So near, so
very near to God, I cannot nearer be, yet in the person of his
Son I am as near as he. So dear, so very dear to God,
more dear I cannot be, the love wherewith he loves the Son, such
is his love to me. And we could actually read more
of that hymn, but it shows you the concept here that it is the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that brings us near. Now, not
only are we brought near, but as I mentioned in Hebrews 10
verse 19, it is by the blood of Jesus that we have this bold
access into the holiest of all, the very presence of God. And
there's no compromise in God for allowing us into his presence
because we come by the blood of Christ. I like to think that
the Lord Jesus Christ would not offer anything to God except
it was his own self in sacrifice of blood. And so the believer
is taught by God to offer nothing, to come by nothing else than
what Christ has done. And so when we come that way,
we are told by God himself, we have his word, therefore his
warrant and his command that we are to come boldly by the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then in Hebrews chapter 13,
not only are all these things true about the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ, that it is our justification, our sanctification,
our remission, our reconciliation, our forgiveness, and being brought
near and having access, but also in Hebrews 13, 20 and 21, the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ has put the everlasting covenant
of God that he made with Christ for his people into force. Every promise God made in that
covenant before time that will be fulfilled throughout everlasting
ages is dispensed towards them because of the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Nothing is left out. So in all
of these things, we see that, and one more, that we overcome
this world, Satan, sin, and everything by the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ, by the faith that we've been given in his precious blood. So, Here's the sum of it all,
and I'm going to read to you phrases from that hymn, Nothing
But The Blood. What can wash away my sins? What
can make me whole again? For my pardon, this I see. For my cleansing, this my plea. This is all my righteousness. Not for any good I've done, now
by this I'll overcome. Now by this I'll reach my home.
All my praise for this I bring, nothing but the blood of Jesus."
What a wonderful truth that hymn reminds us of by pulling out
from scripture all these things about the blood of the Lord Jesus.
Okay, so I've covered through verse 9 as much as we're going
to take time to do that, but I want to read to you a place in Hosea, even if I don't
finish this psalm tonight as I had hoped to do, I want to
read to you in Hosea. Look at Hosea chapter, and maybe
we should stop with this because I don't want to wear you out.
I know it's easy to do. Our attention span begins to So look at Hosea. I want to read
a couple of verses here. David was guilty and he knew
it. And he knew that God knew it. And he admitted it by God's grace. And he had nowhere to go but
to God himself, the one against whom he had sinned. And there's
something very precious about the revelation of God from scripture. that mercy is only to be found
in God. One, if you remember, it's in
2 Samuel 24, verse 14, that David said, don't let me fall into
the hands of man. But let me fall into the hands
of God, for there's mercy with the Lord. There's only mercy
with Him. But look at Hosea first at Hosea
11, verse 9. Hosea 11, verse 9. He says, this
is God speaking now. This is God talking about His
people. I will not execute the fierceness
of mine anger. I will not return to destroy
Ephraim. For I am God and not man, the
Holy One in the midst of thee, and I will not enter into the
city. So God would judge his people
with his wrath, but he's not a man. He is God. He has said
before what he would do, and he has brought it to pass. In
Exodus 32 and in Numbers 14, on two different occasions, the
children of Israel sinned so much that it seemed as if God
should and would destroy them. Moses interceded for the people
as Christ did for his people by his precious blood. But Moses
pleaded God's name in both cases. And this is always wonderful
in scripture, that God forgives his people for his name's sake. Moses argued, he said, he didn't
argue, but he presented this argument to God that was revealed
to him that would be the reason that God himself would do this.
He says, if you destroy this people, then their enemies will
say it was because you couldn't save them. You couldn't bring
them into the land that you promised to give them. And of course,
that's not possible. God can't fail. And their sin
wouldn't keep him from bringing them into their inheritance.
And so that's what God is saying here. I'm not a man. Therefore,
I'm not going to execute the fierceness of my anger. Now look
at chapter 13 of Hosea. Chapter 13 in verse nine, read
these precious words. He says, O Israel, thou has destroyed
thyself. You've brought upon yourself
the consequences of your sin. But in me is thine help. We're always, we look everywhere
else but to the Lord Jesus Christ and to God against whom we've
sinned. We're backwards, we're backsliding people and we don't
bring ourselves to the Lord, rending our hearts as it were.
We hold back, but think about the great mercy of God in Christ. There's no one who has a greater
concern for our souls and our lives than God himself because
of Christ. Now, with your dearest friend,
you can tell them your secrets. How much more with God? So he
tells them this in me is thine help. Not only can you tell the
Lord everything, But when you find yourself like David confessing
your sins, you find that he not only listens, but he has brought
forth that confession in order to show you that in Christ he
is a complete and full Savior. But now look at Hosea 14. I want
you to look at these verses, such precious words God has given
us. He says, O Israel, and you know who Israel is. Of course,
he was Jacob and God changed his name to Israel, but it really
refers to all of God's people, the Israel of God, according
to Galatians 6, verse 16. Here he says, O Israel, return
unto the Lord thy God. Notice that relationship they
have is a covenant relationship, the Lord thy God. Our covenant
with God is in Christ. He says, O Israel, return unto
the Lord thy God, just like David. We who believe on Christ are
sinners still. For thou hast fallen by thine
iniquity. It was your fault that you fell. It was your doing. And this is
what God tells us to do. This is such grace. Take with
you words. And God's gonna give us the words.
and turn to the Lord. Sometimes it means turn as if
the first time, sometimes it means return as if the second,
third, or the umpteenth millionth time. Turn to the Lord, say to
Him, this is what David prayed in Psalm 51, take away all iniquity,
take it away. Make it so it never happened.
Take it away from your face, remember it no more by the blood
of Jesus, and receive us graciously, according to your grace, freely.
So will we render the calves of our lips. We will offer praise
to God because of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, because
God was so gracious as to give His Son to take away our sins. Verse three, Asher shall not
save us. That was the Assyrians. Those
that they considered their worst enemies and were people who lived
according to their lust and seemed to be successful. We're not gonna
look to them. We're not gonna seek after happiness
in this world. We're gonna seek Christ and him
only. We will not ride upon horses, some trust in horses, some in
chariots, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.
Neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, our
idols, our false self-made notions of God that he's like us. You
are our God. For in Thee, the fatherless find
mercy. Those who have no father, who
have no way of providing for themselves, who are exposed to
all of the abuse of cruel and merciless men, the fatherless
find mercy in God. We have no Father. We fell in
Adam. In Adam all die, but in Christ
all are made alive and were brought to God as our Father. We're made
children of God by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The fatherless
find mercy, and then the Lord says, I will heal their backsliding
by the stripes of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's our healing. I will
love them freely without causing them, for mine anger is turned
away from him." There's a summary of God's grace to us who have
sinned against him, who are sinners, who are shameful because of our
sin, and we want nothing more than to be brought back to God,
that He would put away our sins, to take it away, to wash us,
and we know that's all by the Lord Jesus Christ. He tells us
to take these words, return unto the Lord and tell Him, ask Him,
receive us graciously, receive us graciously, take away all
iniquity and receive us graciously. That's what God says for us to
do. Can we pray that prayer? That's God's Word telling us
to do that. What a mercy that is. Let's pray.
Father, we pray according to your Word that you would indeed
put away, take away our sins in the blood of your only begotten
Son, our precious Savior. and make him precious to us,
Lord, so that we would hear the words, go and sin no more, and
yet we would know that we are sinful in ourselves. We do fall
seven times in a day, as it says in Proverbs, as the just man
falls seven times, but he rises again. So we pray, Lord, that
in the Lord Jesus Christ, you would receive us graciously for
his sake, and for his sake alone, and considering him, giving us
grace to consider him only, help us to come into the holiest by
his blood and not attempt to come in any other way, looking
for confidence in our confidence or assurance by our own subjective
experiences, but only by the Lord Jesus Christ. In his name
we pray. Amen.