Psalm 51. I'm reading from verse
8. David is speaking and he says,
Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast
broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins and
blot out all mine inequities. Create in me a clean heart, O
God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from
thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore
unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors
thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee. Amen. May the Lord bless to us this
reading also from his word. We spent a little bit of time
last week thinking about the early verses of this psalm and
the principal theme of those early verses is the freedom from
sin that David sought. David had been confronted by
the prophet Nathan who had told him a parable of a man who had
lost a little lamb, a poor man who had lost a little lamb to
a rich man. David was offended at this parable. He thought that this rich man
who had done such a thing should pay with his life for the affrontery
of taking a poor man's only lamb. And Nathan had turned that parable
around and accused David of being that man because of his sin with
Bathsheba and because of the way in which he afterwards dealt
with Uriah her husband. David was convicted of his sin
on that occasion. And he goes on in Psalm 51, which
was written presumably afterwards or perhaps even in the presence
of Nathan at that time, if David had in some way come under the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit in that moment. But David speaks
of cleansing. He speaks of being cleansed from
his sins. He speaks of washing and purging
and blotting out of transgressions, which shows us that the psalmist
was acutely aware of his sin and his guilt. And very wisely, David makes
no effort to excuse himself or justify himself before God. Rather, he acknowledges his need
of a merciful and loving deliverer. Let me ask you, friend, what
are you going to do about your sin? We've seen what David has
done concerning his sin. We've seen the plea that he made,
the repentance that he sought, the cleansing that he desired.
But what about you and what about me? What are we going to do? What are we going to say to God? How are we going to stand before
God in that day when the accusation is levelled, thou art the man? Do you find in David's predicament
any similarities to your own experience? Does his cry for
help at all resonate with your own feelings of need? I hope it does. David's actions,
his sins, his failures and the scars left in his life, these
are a reflection of the state of your soul and mine as well. These accounts in 2 Samuel, which
we read together a few weeks ago, and here in Psalm 51, these
accounts of David's history and David's experiences, David's
sins, they're not provided just as the story, just as the history. God forbid that we should read
these accounts and gloat or in some way feel superior or imagine
that, well, we wouldn't do that or we couldn't do that. They are a caution and they are
counsel. Be cautioned and take God's counsel. Psalm 51 describes David's repentance. but it's not recorded here in
Scripture in an attempt to rebuild and restore David's reputation. It is instructive. Who among
us, who among us can read these verses and not identify in our
own heart with David the sinner in his fallen state? It is still a thousand years
until the cleansing, redeeming death of the Lord Jesus Christ
at Calvary will take place. A thousand years between David
and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. But who would deny that
the Holy Spirit has supplied us here with an exquisite pattern
to follow in our own approach to God for cleansing in Christ's
blood from our own sin. Let these verses be pointers
and directions, signposts to us to follow in our own approach
to God. David said, purge me with hyssop
and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter
than snow. May we all find grace to utter
the very same prayer as we look to the Lord Jesus Christ, because
God knows we need to. However, David's awareness of
his spiritual need, David's request for this new heart, this new
spirit, this cleansing in his soul, David's awareness of the
spiritual need is not limited to seeking forgiveness and cleansing,
and nor should ours be. David lost something, something
significant when he sinned against God. He lost the joy of the Lord. He lost the comfort of the divine
presence. and the felt blessing of spiritual
fellowship. And this part of the psalm, which
is before us here in these verses, contains David's request that
the Lord might cause him once again to rejoice with joy and
gladness, to recover that which had been lost, to have a renewed,
felt awareness of the presence of God with him.
the Spirit of God, that blessedness that comes from knowing our sins
forgiven and enjoying peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Because remember, thousand years
it may be, but David understood the significance of the sacrifices. He knew what the Lamb was about. These Old Testament believers
looked forward in trust, in faith to the coming Messiah who would
redeem his people from their sins. So David had as much of
a grasp of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in its efficacy
as we have who look back and see the death of Jesus on the
cross. I would suggest, therefore, to
those of us who have tasted somewhat the bitterness of deep regret
and of shame and remorse for our sins. If the Holy Spirit
has supplied us with a pattern in these opening verses for how
to seek forgiveness and cleansing with God, then surely too he
has granted us also permission in David's further request to
add a request of our own for restoration of gladness and recovery
of joy, that we might, with Paul, despite our disgrace and humiliation,
rejoice in the Lord always. And again I say, rejoice. Let us look at what the Bible
teaches us about this spiritual joy. In scripture, there is a
strong correlation, a strong linkage between knowing Christ
by faith and rejoicing in Him. These two things go together,
knowing Christ by faith and rejoicing in Him with an appreciation of
what He has done for us. In the Bible, there is a strong
correlation between finding spiritual treasure in this life and the
joy that comes from that discovery. In the scripture, there's a strong
relationship between receiving salvation in Christ and the corresponding
blessings of God's gifts and graces and the enjoyment of them. so that we can see that there
is this running in tandem, this parallel between our knowledge
of Christ, our awareness of Christ, our understanding of the gospel
doctrines and our experience of them with joy and peace and
comfortableness. So we read in support of these
points in Matthew chapter 13, For example, the kingdom of heaven
is like unto treasure hid in a field, the which when a man
hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth
all that he hath, and buyeth that field. You see, we discover,
we discover Christ, we discover something to do with what Christ
has done. We understand the significance,
the implications of the work on the cross, And for the joy
that that brings us, for the joy that that gives us, we would
give everything that we have. That's the two things working
together. The correlation between knowledge of Christ's work of
redemption and the joy that it brings us. Or again, the early
church. There is an example where we
are told that the early church continued daily with one another
in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, eating their
meat with gladness and singleness of heart. So that being united
together in Christ, being bound together as the body of Christ,
being brought into that experience of grace, gives us that fellowship
with one another, with gladness and singleness of heart, a peace
and a unity that exists in the body of Christ. And the Apostle Paul speaks of
believers in 1 Thessalonians 1. He says that of these believers,
ye became followers of us. When the gospel was preached
to them, they believed what the apostles were saying. Ye became
followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much
affliction with joy of the Holy Ghost. so that even in the midst
of affliction, there was this joy of the indwelling power of
the Holy Ghost. Now these few references will
perhaps suffice to show that joy in spiritual terms is not
the same as the sensual joy that the world pursues. Let's get
that out of the way. Christian joy is something different. It is a deep contentment born
of faith in Jesus Christ. It's a gift, a fruit of the indwelling
Holy Spirit in a believer's life. It trusts in, it depends upon,
and it is comforted by the promises of God's grace. And it is often directly contrary
to what the world counts as joy and gladness. So that James can
tell us, count as joy and gladness. Count it all joy when you fall
into diverse temptations, various temptations. Count it a joy when
you fall into temptations. Or how a church like that in
Macedonia, in 2 Corinthians 8, in a great trial of affliction
and deep poverty, yet displayed the abundance of joy. in a great
trial of affliction and deep poverty, yet displayed abundance
of joy. And of course, even in death,
believers do not grieve as others who have no hope, so that there
is even a comfort and a joy and a blessedness because of the
hope that we have. our faith in Christ. Joy and
gladness are gracious gifts, are divine enablings to encourage
and comfort the Lord's people amid the challenges of this life. However, we learn from our passage
today, believers can lose their sense and awareness of God's
joy and gladness. Now notice this, they can never
lose their salvation, but they can lose the joy of their salvation. I'll repeat it. They can never
lose their salvation, but they can lose the joy of their salvation. David pleads that these may be
returned to him, that he may find reason for joy even in his
brokenness, that fresh views of his saviour and his salvation
might be recovered and that he thereby may recover the benefits
of fellowship with God that his sin had overshadowed and eclipsed. So I've got three quick lessons
that we can all take from this passage and particularly David's
prayer in these verses. The first one is this, the essence
of true happiness. What is the essence? What is
at the heart of true happiness? Secondly, the deceitfulness of
sin. And thirdly, the way back to
the joy of our salvation. So let me just take these three
one by one. The first one is the essence
or the heart of true happiness. When our children were young,
we taught them the Westminster Shorter Catechism. The first
question of that asks, what is the chief end of man? And the answer is, man's chief
end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Well, Adam's sin, Adam's fall
into sin in the Garden of Eden did for both of those objectives,
both of those ends failed because of Adam's sin. We neither glorify
God nor do we enjoy him. as a result of our fallen state. In our fallen sinful state, we
cannot glorify God or enjoy Him. And this is how it must have
stayed had God not formed the covenant of grace and secured
a way of salvation. And that salvation is in Jesus
Christ. The Gospel, the good news is
that Jesus Christ, God's only Son, His only begotten Son, Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, was made a substitute and a surety that
is one who stands responsible, a representative for all God's
elect. In the eternal purpose of God,
He chose a people, He set them apart in the Lord Jesus Christ,
and He appointed the Lord, His Son, to be the substitute and
surety for those people. With these responsibilities,
that He would bear their sin, He would clothe them in His righteousness,
and he would bring us the joy of salvation. And Paul tells
the Romans this in Chapter four, verse eight. He says, blessed
is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Now, blessed
in the Bible is a word for happiness. In fact, the newer translations
invariably use the word happy in place of blessed because,
well, we're too poorly educated now to understand what blessed
means, but it means happy. So let me paraphrase. Happy is
the person to whom the cleansing blood of Christ has been applied. Happy is the person who is clothed
with righteousness, the righteousness of God himself. Blessed is the
man whose sin is forgiven and forever taken away. That's true happiness. The essence,
the heart of true happiness is spiritual joy, gladness, blessing,
and rejoicing in time and for eternity because of what Christ
has done for us. It is found in understanding
Jesus Christ crucified for the sins of his people and experienced
through personal faith in the covenant promises of God. And this gospel truth is our
eternal hope founded on the unchanging character of God and the immutable
and the unalterable decree of his purpose of grace towards
the people of his love and affection. God's love for His chosen people
is everlasting and it does not alter according to our variableness. We change, but He changes not. God's grace, His mercy, His knowledge,
His will, His goodness does not vary towards His elect because
He always views us in union with His Son He always views us covered
by His representation and under His care. So that when God's
elect were placed in Christ in the covenant of peace, our everlasting
joy was assured and eternally fixed. Consequently, in Christ, God's
people really do glorify him and really do enjoy him forever. God is pleased with us in Christ
and we are heirs with him of all things. This is the teaching
of scripture and the objective reality of the church's blessed
state. It is yours and my happy condition
in Jesus Christ. That's the first point, that
is the essence of true happiness. Here's the second point, the
deceitfulness of sin. The Lord Jesus told the Pharisees,
their father the devil was a murderer from the beginning, a liar and
the father of lies. So too is the deceitfulness of
sin which Satan spawns. You see, sin offers pleasure
and satisfaction and joy in this world. That's what it sets before
people. It says, do this and you'll be
content. Do this and you'll be happy.
Do this and you'll be satisfied. That's what Satan does. And he
does it to believers. Sin offers pleasure and satisfaction
and joy, but it brings pain and emptiness and sorrow. David in
his weakness, David in the weakness of his flesh, had become ensnared
in the imaginary pleasure of Bathsheba's embrace. But in choosing
the pleasures of sin for a season, David had lost the felt joy of
the Lord. He had lost his awareness of
God's peace and God's presence. That doesn't mean to say David
had lost his salvation. Our sin does not alter God's
love and patience towards us, but it overshadows and hides
our views of Christ's blood. It overcomes our sense of peace
and it makes us feel guilty and soiled in God's sight. Satan
attacks God's people wherever we are weakest. For one, he stirs up lust. For
another, he sows seeds of doubt. Another is overcome by fear.
Another is stumbled by pride. His technique is devious. He
makes us too ashamed to imagine that God loves us. Too guilty
to have any hope in Christ's blood. Too busy to hear the Gospel
anymore. Too tired to read the Bible.
Too stressed to be at peace and still. Too far gone to be recoverable. Satan lies to us. He deceives
us. And all the time, our views of
the Lord are fading. Our sense of his presence is
diminishing. Our alertness to gospel truth
is deadened and our resistance falters. We yield to Satan's lies and
the felt joy and peace of the Lord flees from our heart and
from our experience. Maybe I should only speak for
myself. But I think others also know
what David is talking about here. Which brings me to my third point.
What is the way back to God? What is the way back to this
joy and gladness, the joy of our salvation that David now
realised he had lost? Well, it may seem unhelpful to
be told this, but our way back to joy is not within ourselves. It took a work of God to convict
David of his sin, and it will take the Lord to convict us as
well. But when the Lord does vex our
soul by showing us what we've lost, here, in David's response, we
see how a child of God will react. The process might be different,
the experience might be shorter, more protracted, But this is
how the Lord's people will react. David went back to what he knew,
not what he felt. He returned to God's promises
and he made his petition upon the faithfulness of God. He asked for a clean heart. He asked for a fresh start. He asked for a renewed spirit. David was aware of the Holy Spirit's
work in his life and David's faith endured despite the great
sins that he had committed. So he asks that the Holy Spirit
be not taken from him. You see, implicit in that is
David's understanding that the Holy Spirit had been granted
to him. He is founding his request, his plea, his desire upon the
promises of God. He knew where to credit a spiritual
work. Not in himself, not even in his
desires. It is not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth. He knew that the Spirit needed
to work upon him. And in the process of spiritual
recovery, David rested on the bare promises of God's goodness
and love and mercy. And he pleaded for a fresh sense
of the comfort of these graces. David knew that the same almighty
power as brought a first awareness of quickening grace, brought
us first to conversion, was needed again to renew the privileges
of a clean heart and a pure conscience. And there's earnestness and there's
urgency in David's prayer, and rightly so. I say to you, child
of God, do not dilly-dally. Do not hang about if the Lord
shows you your need to repent of a sin. We all know men and women who
started out well in the Christian life but fell by the wayside. I mentioned in the little note,
perhaps David remembered how Saul had been rejected of God.
That should give him urgency in his prayer. That should give
him a sense of anxiety. Saul had been chosen and then
rejected. Perhaps he recalled others who
seemed to have a good testimony and yet now we're far removed
from the Lord. He sees how close he is to being
one of them and he pleads with the Saviour not to cast him aside. To be restored and recovered
from sin and the bitterness of sin is nothing short of a fresh
view of Christ crucified. The same view that first brought
us to saving faith is needed again. We need to understand
the power of the blood to cleanse us, the faithfulness of God to
forgive us, the grace of the Spirit to illuminate and renew
us, and we need to hear the gospel afresh and learn the old, old
story all over again. As with all our spiritual blessings,
each believer ultimately traces their joy and gladness to the
provisions of God in Christ. If I have not Christ, how can
I ever have joy? How can I ever be glad? The world
will not satisfy Everything we have of a spiritual nature, we
have only in Christ. Anything that is good within
us comes only from Christ. In him, all of God's promises
are yea and amen. In union with him, we are heirs
of every blessing. every happiness, every joy and
gladness. But the devil is eager to rob
God's people of joy and peace and believing. So he stirs up
fleshy passions and he tempts us to sin and he provokes us
to stumble and to fall, which is the reason why the gospel
is so essential to us. we have to hear the gospel regularly
and frequently. Our minds must frequently return
to God's sovereign mercy, Christ's cleansing blood, and the Holy
Spirit's renewing grace. Let me finish with this thought. It is a question. Did David ever
know real joy and gladness again. He asks for it. Did he ever know
it again? I dare say that much of David's
life hereafter was spent in sorrow and pain. We have learned that there is
a consequence to sin in this world. I have no doubt the joy
of salvation did return to David. But we know that the old man,
I don't mean the old man of sin, I mean that David as an aged
man, David as the elder statesman that he became, David as the
old prophet, knew little in the way of happiness or contentment
in the affairs of his home and in the stability of his kingdom
for the rest of his life. Sin, like a serpent, has a long
tail. And even sin forgiven by God
leaves scars that remain visible for a long, long time. God had
said that he would raise trouble from David's family and so it
was. David had learned that he deserved
nothing but punishment and yet God remained faithful. That was
the joy he had. That was the restored joy of
salvation. He realised how easily it is
to fall ever so shamefully. And so he pleaded that the Holy
Spirit not be taken from him or that he should fall again
and perhaps even worse the next time. So that despite the temporal
sadness that now afflicted David's life, he was more anxious that
the comforter be not removed from his soul. which ought to
be the prayer of every child of God. Whatever your daily experience
in this world may contain, of joy or sadness or pleasure or
pain, there is nothing a child of God dreads so much as our
Saviour being hidden from our eyes, and the absence of the
Holy Ghost, the comforter of our souls in every condition
and situation of life. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us. Amen.