The Lord may graciously help
me. I turn your prayerful attention to the psalm that we read, Psalm
139, and reading verses 23 and 24 for our text. Psalm 139, verses
23 and 24. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts,
and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the
way everlasting. Psalm 139, verses 23 and 24. this Psalm of David, starts off
showing the omniscience of God, that God knows everything. And
so, and David starts off by saying, O Lord, thou hast searched me
and known me. And he speaks of how much God
knows about him. He knows before he was, while
he was being formed in the womb, and all of those, the intricate
details of our lives, until now and of course into the future
as well, into eternity future. God knows everything. And really, that can be, depending
on where we stand, either a comforting or a frightening thought. You
see, if somebody doesn't know too much, you can easily deceive
them and get them to believe a set of things which is not
true about you. But if you've got somebody here,
as David speaks, of the omniscience of God, that he knows everything,
then God knows the truth and we cannot deceive him. And if
we then are seeking to walk separate from God in our lives, this is
a frightening thought because God knows the truth of what we
are truly before him. He sees with his all-searching
eye. But you see, for the child of
God, there's also a comfort that God knows the truth and God knows
what really is going on. I think of this really with Peter,
Peter the disciple, the one that denied his Lord with oaths and
curses when he was challenged, when Jesus was being tried. But you see, later on when They
went fishing and Jesus had risen from the dead and appeared to
them and then had that breakfast meal with them on the, with that
fire of coals. Jesus asked him a question, Simon,
son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Three times he asked him. And
at the last time, Peter says this, Peter was grieved because
he said unto him the third time, lovest thou me? And he said unto
him, Lord, thou knowest all things. Thou knowest that I love thee.
So here Peter was appealing to God's omniscience, that he knows
everything. He could see that Peter did genuinely love his
master. but Peter genuinely fell. You
see, we might think that, well, when Jesus was taken, all the
disciples forsook him and fled, which is true. And you might
say, well, Judas denied him and sold him, and Peter also denied
him. Is there much difference? Well,
you see, we read of Judas that he sought opportunity, how he
should betray Jesus. He was getting up in the morning
thinking, now, how can I betray my master? How can I get this money for myself so
that I can betray him into the hands of the leaders? But Peter
didn't get up in the morning thinking that. Peter loved his
Lord. I will never deny my Lord, he
says. Yes, there was some vain confidence
there as well, but he genuinely did love his Lord, and he genuinely
fell, and he was genuinely restored. So Peter here, a child of God,
he finds a comfort in the knowledge of God. Thou knowest all things,
thou knowest that I love thee. This morning we spoke from the
Sermon on the Mount. And we looked at those words in Matthew 7. Enter ye in at the straight gate,
for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction,
and many there be which go in thereat. Because straight is
the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and
few there be. that find it, these searching
words of the Lord. And in thinking of that and trying
to link it really with this prayer of David's, search me, O God,
and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and
see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me. in the way
everlasting. The Lord Jesus so clearly sets
before us the straight gate and the wide gate. The straight,
the narrow, the restricted, like the straits of Gibraltar, a narrow
place. And we have here that there's
a narrow way and a narrow gate. And we spoke of how going through
a narrow gate, you can't get you only can get through yourself,
like a turnstile. You can't carry briefcases and
packs and things like that. You can only get through yourself
onto that road. And how we need to leave behind,
you see, all our notions of our own thoughts, And we have to
say that God is God. And God is, the Lord Jesus is
our ultimate authority as to how to get to heaven. And what
he says is what we follow, and not our own thoughts. You see,
we might think, well, we may form a God of our own imagination,
and we have a God that is like this and like that. But that's
really, if it's not according to the God of the Word of God,
then it's we're framing an idol. It's not God. But you see, we're
to have God as our God. And we noted that there was a
need, you see, to, we couldn't go through with any of our own
self-righteousness. Our self-righteousness, that
couldn't, we couldn't have that self-righteousness. We had to
lose it. We had to come as nothing in thy hand I bring, simply to
thy cross I cling. There was that need to lose ourselves,
no longer living to ourselves. If any man come after me, let
him deny himself. And you see, then there was also
the thought that we can't carry on in sin. We have to leave our
sins behind. And it's not just leaving at
the gate and then getting somebody to pass it over the railings
and picking it up after we've gone through the gate and then
carrying on with it. No, it's a narrow way as well
as a narrow gate. And we have to continue to be
dependent on the Lord and continue to mortify sin. And the other
point was that we cannot have the world. We have to love, not
the world. There needs to be that right,
gracious separation. Enter ye in at the straight gate.
And Jesus puts this clearly, the right way, the entrance into
this narrow way, which leads to life and all other ways, this
broad way that has many different, if you like, ways in it. There's
a way of profane ungodliness and there's a way of religious
ungodliness. The Pharisees, both ways lead
to destruction, but this street gate, this narrow way which leadeth
to life. Well, as we see the teachings
of the Lord and the searching of Him saying, not everyone that
saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom, but he
that doeth the will of my Father. There is a need for us to have
entered and to be partakers of this. It's not just enough to
know about these truths, we have to do them. Well, with all those
thoughts in mind, surely there comes in our hearts these words
of David, search me. Oh God, and know my heart, try
me, and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way
in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. You see, if you go, if you have
a problem with your body, not working right, things wrong with
it. You go to the doctors and you
explain to them the problems and the symptoms and perhaps
they give you some scans and some tests. And in a sense you
want them to find out all the details so that they can deal
with the root of the problem. And it's no point. You see, you
have some people that have problems in their body and they just want
to hide it. They don't want to tell anybody. You get some people
like that with cancer. They know that something's not
right. They feel a growth. They can see that it's not right.
And they think, well, I'm not going to tell anyone. I'm not
going to go to the doctors. I'm just going to pretend it isn't there. Well,
you say, surely that's foolish. That's not going to solve the
problem and that cancer's going to get worse probably and could
well be fatal. But you see, David here says,
search me, oh God. Now, you see here, David realized
something of the nature of the mercy of God. You see, if you can only see
that this judge that you're coming to is one that is going to judge
you for your shortcomings, you're going to be trying to hide from
that judge. You're going to be trying to
put as many layers of defense possible so that this judge doesn't
really understand quite what you've done, so that you may
not get such a strong sentence against you as would justly be
the case. But this is not what David's
doing in this psalm. David realizes he's come to that
place where he's confessed his sin, but he knows that there's
still remaining sin. And he knows that he's imperfect. And he asks, you see, search
me, oh God. He wants God's light to come
and shine in his heart so that all those wrong ways and all
those wrong thoughts and all those wrong actions, search me. See, David realizes that, and
what an awful thing it must be, if this happened to any of us,
many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, we have prophesied
in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in
thy name done many wonderful works, then will I profess unto
them, I never knew you, depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Can there be anything more solemn
than that? To have spent our lives with
a form of godliness, to be involved in ministry, in doing what we
thought was the Lord's work, and yet, to never have been really
entered into this straight gate, into this narrow way. This is
disaster, isn't it? This is endless disaster, destruction. And surely then, is it not right
for us to come with those words of dear David, search me, oh
God. We want to be searched by God.
And there's a realization here that God, you see, is searching
us for a purpose of good. You see, David says here earlier,
how precious also are thy thoughts unto me. Oh God, how great is
the sum of them. He perceives that God is, as
it were, loves him. And his thoughts are thoughts
of love and mercy towards him. And therefore, you see, David
wants to be searched by this God and wants to know that all
the depths of his heart be searched so that he may be a genuine,
a genuine follower of Christ. Is that true of you? You see, we want to be genuine. And it's much better, you see,
if we found that there was something non-genuine about our faith,
well, if we find that out now, then there's hope, isn't there?
There's hope to then cry to God for mercy, to cry to God that
he would have mercy upon us and bring us in the right way. You
see, there's been, there have been, I think Berridge wrote
a number of our hymns in our Gatsby's hymn book. But I understand
in the life of Berridge, he was preaching before he was converted. He was preaching, and after a
little while of preaching in the church that he was, the Lord
worked in his heart, and he realized that he wasn't a child of God
as yet, and he needed to come this way of the narrow gate. He needed to lose his self-righteousness. He no longer could think of himself
as one that pleased God in and of himself. He needed the righteousness
of another. And you see, so Berridge was
one who, in a sense, as the Lord searched him and found him, he
realized that he was one of these, at that point, one of these false
preachers, one that didn't really know the Lord himself. But you
see, Berridge came to know him. And you see, and why my soul? Why not for thee? And therefore
there is this genuineness about David. But you see, David was
not always as genuine as he should have been. David was that sweet psalmist
of Israel. But in the matter of Uriah and
Bathsheba, I think there was a time in his experience for
something like a year after that where he was in a bad place. And I don't think David would
have wanted to pray this prayer. Search me, O God, and know my
heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked
way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. No, no, no,
David wanted to hide. He wanted to hide from God. He
wanted to, he didn't want God to search at that point. He wanted
his sin, as it were, and he wanted to carry on in unrepentance. And you see, this is what we
read. In Psalm, let me just find it, Psalm 32, I think it is. Psalm 32, the Psalm of David. Blessed is he whose transgression
is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in his spirit there is no
guile. When I kept silence, my bones whacked old through my
roaring all the day long. So it seems that this is David
when he hadn't yet confessed his sin. He bottled it up. He'd hidden it. He tried to deceive
Israel that he hadn't really killed Uriah and that really
the baby had come from somebody else with Bathsheba. He tried
to deceive. For all the day and night thy
hand was heavy upon me, my moisture is turned into the drought of
summer. I acknowledge my sin unto thee,
and mine iniquity have I not hid. So you see that when there
was, I said, I will confess my transgression unto the Lord,
and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. So this is David coming
with confession. And of course, Psalm 51 shows
very clearly how he confessed that sin and how he got back.
right with God from the dark paths of sin. But David, you
see, was not always in a good place. But you see, when we're
in a right place, when we realise our own ability to get it wrong,
our ability to fall, our ability to not be right with God, But then
surely the cry goes out, search me, search me, oh God. Because I don't want to be wrong.
And if I am wrong, I want to know. I want to know because
you see, then there's... Then there's hope. It says, in
another place, it says, examine yourselves to see whether you'd
be in the faith. Well, some people say, well,
I don't want to examine myself in case I'm not in the faith.
But you see, the Lord Jesus puts it in a positive way. Examine
yourselves to see if you'd be in the faith. You see, this right
examination will yield, will yield assurance. that we
are in the right way. But not because we say, well,
I'm not going to look. I'm not going to look. I'm not
going to ask difficult questions. I'm not going to analyse my thought
patterns. I'm not going to really be open with the Lord. I'm going
to hide these things. No. To come to the Lord Jesus and
say, Lord, make me all I ought to be. Search me, O God. Lord, whatever I do in my life,
Whatever, wherever I am, whatever I need to be, Lord, one thing
I want to be is Thy servant. I want to serve Thee and Thee
only. And whatever other people say
or whatever other credentials happen, this is this one desire
to be the servant of the living God. And in that sense, I'm using
the word servant there as all of the Lord's people could use
it. in the sense that his servants serve him. And we, in our different
capacities, each need to serve the Lord. Ye are my witnesses. Not just ministers, ye are my
witnesses. We are to be witness. This people
have I formed for myself, they shall show forth my praise. David, you see, he wants that
genuine. He wants the genuine article.
And if it's not the genuine article, he wants to go back. And you
see, at one point, David, with his sin particularly, he had
to realise that he had gone wrong. He had done some terrible things,
have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness, Psalm
51 this is, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies,
blot out my transgressions, wash me throughly from my iniquity,
cleanse me from my sin. You see, David acknowledges,
I acknowledge my transgression, my sin is ever before me. Then
he goes on later, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. He doesn't want to stay in this
far off condition. He'd lost the joy. He'd embraced
the sin. He'd tried to hide his sin. And he'd separated, that sin
had separated between him and his God. And he wants to come
back then with repentance. And that is what we spoke of
this morning with this turning again in Matthew. ye in at the straight gate."
This narrow way, this turnstile. You can't go in with your self-righteousness. You can't continue to live to
yourself. You have a new Lord, you see.
You have a new one that's in control. It's not, well, I want
to do this, and I want to live there, and I want to do the other,
and I want to have my name on this, and my name associated
with that. Jesus says, in Matthew, we spoke
about this morning, Matthew 16, if any man will come after me,
if any man's going to go into this narrow way, if any man's
going to get through this straight gate, if any man will come after
me, this is Matthew 16, verse 24, let him deny himself. It's not easy to deny ourselves,
isn't it? It's much easier to please ourselves, not to deny
ourselves. But this is what Jesus says,
let him deny himself. But when we see what's at stake
here, leadeth unto life. This is the way that leads to
life. And a way, you see, that isn't denying ourselves and living
unto ourselves and doing our own way. You see, and we might
be exceedingly busy. Saul of Tarsus was very, very
busy in his unregeneracy. He was hailing men and women
to prison. He was zealous. He was very busy. But he was totally mistaken as
to what he was doing. But the Lord stopped him, you
see, on that Damascus road. Let him deny himself. Take up his cross and follow
me. So this is the great thing that
is so vital. We need to enter this narrow
gate. We need to walk on this narrow
road. And it continues to be narrow. It continues to be, if
we've been a Christian for 20 years, we still need to realise
that nothing in my hand I bring. We still need to realise that
our righteousness is not our own, that we are sinners. Search me, O God, and know my
heart. See, we don't often know. Sometimes
our own heart, do we? Sometimes we don't understand
our heart. Peter didn't, did he? He said,
though all men will forsake thee, yet will not I. He didn't know
himself, did he? And we're not criticizing Peter.
We're not saying that Peter, that we can look down on Peter,
but you see, we need to search me, oh God, and know my heart,
this one who knows everything, that he may know our hearts and
genuinely deal with us, deal with us in love and mercy, and
deal with us for our good. And you see, this is what God
does to his people. I think it's beautifully pictured
in the way that Joseph treated his brethren when they came to
him for food to Egypt. They had sold him. They'd kidnapped him, basically,
and sold him as a slave into Egypt. They dealt terribly with
him. And then they came to buy that
food. And he knew who they were. And he knew their sin. And they just said that one is
not. One is not. They didn't come
clean on the fact that, well, we've sold one of them into slavery
and we don't know where he is. They weren't honest. And he drilled
down and got them, and they started to say, we're very guilty concerning
our brother. But as we think of this beautiful
picture, you see, Joseph never told all the Egyptians of his
brothers, what their brothers had done. I don't think the Egyptians
ever knew. You see, when he made himself
known to his brethren, he had all the Egyptians go out. This
was never headline news for the Egyptians, the sin of his brethren. But he searched them out. And
he searched them out and he got them to confess. And when there
was that confession, you see, when there was that contrition,
when there was that hatred of sin, and he showed that they'd
really repented and turned from their sins, and when they could
have done to Benjamin what they had done to Joseph some 22 years
or so before, and they didn't. And Judah was prepared to be
the surety for Benjamin and prepared to stay a bondman in Egypt for
the rest of his life so that Benjamin could go back to his
father. Such a change in behaviour of Judah. But you see, he then
revealed himself to them as the one that loved them. You see,
he searched them, but not to put their news on the front line
of the newspaper, not to humiliate them and just to... in hatred. No, he searched them. of sin, to bring them to hate
sin, to bring them to turn from their sin. And then he showed
them mercy. And we read later on that Joseph
takes five of his brethren and presents them unto Pharaoh in a very positive way. He doesn't
say, look, these are the men that sold me into Egypt. These
are my kidnappers. No. And we're reminded, you see,
in Jude, where it says, it says, unto him that is able to keep
you and to present you faultless before his father with exceeding
joy. You see, this is what God has
in mind, and this is what he does. God deals with his people. He searches them out, you see,
for their good. And David realizes that here,
but he didn't always realize it. And sometimes, perhaps when
we're in a poor spiritual place, we want to hide. We want to put
barricades up so that God can't see what's going on. But here
he says, search me, O God. know my heart, try me and know
my thoughts. For David, the worst thing possible
was for him to be deceived. The worst thing possible was
for him to misjudge this way, to be out of the narrow way.
That was the worst that could possibly be for David. And may
that be a concern for us, that I might be in that right
way. And what is that right way? The right way is looking to the
Lord Jesus for our righteousness. You see, David realised he was
a sinner, and he realised he needed to be right with God,
so he needed another, even the Lord Jesus Christ, to be his
God. And you see, That is the wonderful
thing of this way, this way of losing our self-righteousness.
And Joseph's brethren had to lose their self-righteousness.
And you might think, well, surely this is, as Joseph's going to
find out all this information, it's just going to get worse
and worse for them. He knew it all along. As soon as he saw
those brethren, he knew all their sin. He knew it all together. but he wanted to bring them to
confess that sin. And to confess sin is to say
about sin what God says about sin. Not one is not, that one
of our brothers is just not there anymore. No, to confess that
we have sold him, we have been wicked, we have been sinful.
David prays here then, search me, oh God and know my heart,
try me. and know my thoughts. It's not
just our deeds, it's our thoughts. What are we thinking? Are we
thinking proud thoughts, building castles in the air, thinking
how great we will be? David says, Lord, search me.
He knows that he is liable to sin. Search me, O God, and know
my heart. Try me and know my thoughts,
you see. You see, dear, Job went through
a difficult path, didn't he? But Job was able to say this
in Job 23 verse 10, but he knoweth the way that I take when he hath
tried me. I shall come forth as gold. God would bring out that gold.
That the root of the matter was in Job. That Job was not. That's what his friends kept
telling Job. Job, you're a hypocrite. Job,
you're not genuine. If you really were a genuine
child of God, then God would not be doing this to you. If
God was really your God, he would now appear for you. Just what
they said to Christ on the cross. If God is your God, let him come
down from the cross. But Job was able to look beyond
it, you see. But he knoweth the way that I
take. And when he hath tried me, searched me, tried me. And what a trial Job went through.
What searching of heart he had. How he had to be humble, didn't
he? He got lower and lower, Job did,
until he says, behold, I am vile. That's what Job ends up by saying.
And then the Lord so blesses him, raises him up, giving twice
as much as he had before. Search me, O God. You see, we're
coming to one who loves. One that we trust. One that we
put our trust in. Search me, O God. Make me the
genuine article. And we see the propensity and
the possibility of making a mistake or being false in any part of
our life. And we're coming to the Lord
Jesus and saying, search me, O God. Know my heart. Try me. and know my thoughts, and see
if there be any wicked way in me." Now, I'm sure David did
not mean this like some sort of challenge, that see if God
could find anything of wickedness in David, as if he felt that
he was perfect. I'm sure that was not in that
way that David meant it, and see if there be any wicked way
in him. He knew that sin was mixed with
all he did, and he didn't want to want to go that way. As Paul in Romans 7, we mentioned
this morning, how that he did not allow that sin in his life. Yes, it was there, but he didn't
allow it. And he never condoned it. He always was mortifying
it. See if there be any wicked way
in me and lead me in the way everlasting. There's a way, you
see. David saw there was a way. And this morning as we were speaking,
there is a way. There is this narrow way, the
way that leads to life. And it's entering into that gate.
It's having union with the Lord Jesus. It's renouncing our own
righteousness. It's turning from our sin. It's
turning from the world. And it's having God as our God,
that he might be our savior and our redeemer. And you see, we
come, Another psalm, in Psalm 31, we
read, I think it's a Psalm of David, I'll just check. Psalm
31. Yeah, that is a Psalm of David. But that says, my times
are in thy hands. And David saw that his times
was in his hands. And for earlier in that chapter,
it says, into thine hand I commit my spirit, thou hast redeemed
me, O Lord God of truth. And the redemption makes all
the difference between... Jonathan Edwards, I think, preached
a very famous sermon called Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.
And if we think about that and how we are all sinners in the
hands of an angry God, that's a fearful place to be. Out of Christ. But with redemption,
if we have been purchased, then you see, these hands of our God,
his hands of love and mercy and his hands of seeking to do us
good and seeking to sanctify us, to make us more conformed
to the image of his Son. And this is what David is praying
for, conformity to the image of Christ. Search me, O God,
and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and
see if there be any wicked way in me. And if there is, purge
it out. Show me it and cause me to come
to the light and cause me to confess it and cause me to turn
from it, cause me to mortify it. Don't let me live in it.
Don't let me perpetuate it as being good when it is not. Search
me, oh God. You see, it's an open heart.
It's not trying to hide things from God. It's trying to say,
Lord, They'll see it's my innermost heart. They'll know sin is mixed
with all I do. Lord, search me and lead me in
that way everlasting, that narrow way, the way that the vultures
eye hath not seen, the way of humility, the way of love, the
way of godliness, the way of grace. Lead me in that way everlasting. And how can we ever have our
hearts changed It's only as the Lord works in us. It is God that
worketh in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure. And David had these desires because
of the Lord had put in his heart that work of grace, the work
of the grace to lead him to the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, David, you see, was that
sweet psalmist of Israel. One that spoke so many words
which are so instructive to us. Search me, O God. Is there an
echo in your heart? Search me, O God. Don't, don't
leave me. Don't leave me to go the wrong
way. Don't leave me to go in the broad
way. Don't leave me to miss the narrow
gate. Search me, O God, know my heart,
try me, and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked
way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. But just before I close, I want
to also look at these words in a different way. You see, David
was a sinner. and the searching of God was
going to try him and expose his sin as it were so that God could
see and deal with it as a good doctor would deal with a poorly
patient. He would expose where the problem
lies and then with a view to doing that patient good. And
that is it, I believe, as David was praying that prayer. But
as we know, David was also one who in a number of the Psalms,
you see, have that messianic view, that they're also the words
of the Saviour. And I want you to think of it
just at the end like this as well. How the Lord Jesus could
come to his Father and say, search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me. and know my thoughts,
and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the
way everlasting. You see, when we say this, it's
always, well, God is going to see our sin and it's going to
reveal our sin that needs to be dealt with. But you see, we
come with the Lord Jesus as that Lamb of God without blemish. And here he presents himself
to his Father as the perfect Lamb, the one that had no sin
in him at all. holy, harmless, undefiled, separate
than sinners. And you see, he was tried. Christ
was tried and it was exposed, as it were, in all the difficulty
that he was subjected to. And yet he, he gained the victory. He didn't sin. He didn't fall. He didn't falsely, as it were,
do anything. He was, he was righteous. Search
me, oh God. know my heart, try me and know
my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way
in me. Well, there was no wicked way
in Christ. There was no sin in him at all.
And therefore, that was why he was the Lamb of God. He was the
Lamb without blemish. He was the one that would stand
in his people's place. Yes, all the searching of God's
people would expose their sin and show their need for the Lamb
of God. that would deal with sin and
see if there'd be any wicked way in me. Well, he looked at
his beloved son and said, this is my beloved son. Hear ye him. You see, there was
perfection. Jesus on that mount of transfiguration. He was transfigured before his
disciples. His raiment shone as bright as
the sun. Search me, O God, and know my
heart. Try me and know my thoughts,
and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the
way everlasting. And he went in his father's way.
He went in that way everlasting. He was willing to lay down his
life for ransom for many. If it be possible, let this cup
pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will but
thine be done. He went through that way to make
an everlasting way for his people. so that they, in all their sinfulness,
would have a substitute, would have a saviour, would have one
to plead their cause. David, you see, this sweet psalmist
of Israel, the one that he says knows everything. God knows everything. He knows our innermost hearts. May then we be searched with
the candle of God's word. and that searching not to bring
everything into uncertainty but that searching to You see, if
you're travelling somewhere and you know that you need to get
to the airport and at the airport you'll be checked for your passport,
you perhaps one or two times, several times check that your
passport is with you and it's in date and you've got it. And you check because you want
to be confirmed that you have that and that it is genuine and
when you go to the gate that it will be accepted rather than
rejected. So the child of God, you see,
He wants the approbation of God. He wants to know the genuine
article. And that's what David did, you
see, when he had sinned and acted like the world and acted like
the ungodly with Uriah and Bathsheba. He'd lost his assurance and he
wanted it to be restored. Restore unto me the joy of thy
salvation. He'd lost it. but he wanted it
restored and God graciously restored it. And then he says, then will
I teach transgressors thy ways. Then he's going to go and be
a witness to others. And you see, may we in our lives
then, as the Lord restores us from all our sin, that we may
be able to tell the sinners round what a dear saviour we have found
and point to his redeeming blood and say, behold the way. to God. This is the right way. This is the narrow way, but it
leads to life. And may there be then a concern
in each of us that we may be on the right way, that we may
be genuine Christians, that we may be amongst those who really
genuinely know what it is to enter this narrow gate and to
walk in this narrow road and to be looking for that blessed
hope and that glorious appearing of the great God. Amen.