I stand here before you as somebody
that the Lord has sent to minister unto you. If I am indeed a pastor that He has sent, that's
my charge is to minister to you. Minister to you words of comfort.
Minister to you words of assurance. Minister to you the sure mercies
of our Lord Jesus. And that's my chief desire. I
do want to be a helper of your joy. And yet, when I try to speak, I try to find a message. when my own heart is so overwhelmed
with my own sin. And the heavens seem like they're
just shut completely up to me. I look at this text of Scripture,
and I look at that text of Scripture, and I consider this doctrine, and I
consider that doctrine, and I lay down on my face before
God, literally on my face before God, And I ask you for a message,
for joy, for my own heart, that I can bring it to you for your
heart. How can one who beholds himself
like this open His mouth to teach anybody. How can somebody that's so insufficient tell you about the sufficiency
of God's grace? And yet, the hour draws nearer. Hand on the clock keeps ticking
along. And I know I have to stand here
and speak to sinners who've worked all week, going
through all sorts of trials, suffering all sorts of attacks
from the enemy within and without. And I have to speak a word to
you. Lord, I need that word. And so I find myself praying. Create in me clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me,
Lord. Have you ever been that helpless? Have you ever begged God for
such a thing? This Psalm 51 is the prayer of
King David. I thought he was called of God. I thought the Scripture says
he's a man after God's own heart. How could a called, saved, sanctified
saint of God, how could he pray such a thing? You see there at the beginning
it says, to the chief musician, a psalm of David, when Nathan
the prophet came unto him after he had gone into Beersheba. David
was called of God and he was sent to minister to earthly Jerusalem, those inhabitants concerning
heavenly Jerusalem. And his desire was to teach transgressors. His desire was to be a helper
of their joy. His desire was to see sinners
converted to the Lord Jesus. And yet here he is, an adulterer,
a premeditated murderer. And as we'll see here, that was
just a reminder of the horrid pollution he was in his own flesh. That's all that was. As I started to read the 51st
Psalm, I started to see these petitions that David made that
began to jump out at me, have mercy upon me, wash me, purge
me, make me to hear, created me a clean heart, and so on.
All David could do was to ask God, beg God, to do for him what
David could not do for himself. And as honest as I know how to
be with you right now, that's all I can do. Let's look at these petitions
together. The first one is, have mercy upon me. Psalm 51.1. Have mercy upon me, O God, according
to Thy lovingkindness, according to the multitude of Thy tender
mercies. Blot out my transgressions. That's
what I need. I need mercy. I need mercy. Do you need mercy? Do you need
mercy? I need mercy because I don't
have any merit in me. I need mercy, not just because
of the misery I am and that I'm in. I need mercy, not because
God's not obligated to me. Mercy is all I can ask God for. I need mercy. And I don't need
it according to anything in me. I need it this way. I need it
according to His loving kindness. God's loving kindness is His
love. It's free. It's sovereign. It's distinguishing. That means
it's set upon objects that He's everlastingly loved. It's love
that is unchangeable. And here's the main thing. It's
love that's in Christ, His Son. He loves His Son. And because
He loves His Son, that's my petition. Lord, have mercy on me according
to Your loving kindness toward Your own Son. If He will love me, if He loves
His Son, and He put me in His Son, and He's called me into
His Son, and I'm trusting His Son. If He shows me kindness,
it's going to be because He loves His Son, and He will not allow
me to perish. That's my plea. That's the grounds
of mercy I come to Him on. That only. And I need a multitude of His
tender mercies. It's not merely that I committed
one sin. It's not merely but a multitude
of sins. And it's not merely sins I've
committed, but I need mercy because of this vast wretchedness that
I am. That's what I need. A multitude
of tender mercies is what I need. I need for God, according to
the multitude of His tender mercies, to blot out my transgression. I need Him to wash me and to
cleanse me. Verse 2. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions
and my sin as ever before me. Against thee and thee only have
I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest
be justified when thou speakest, be clear when thou judgest, Behold,
I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive
me. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts. My sin's my own. It's mine iniquities. It's my sin. It's my transgressions. My sin's against God and God
only. Wasn't David's sin against Bathsheba? Wasn't David's sin against her
husband who he had murdered? Wasn't David's sin against Jerusalem
over whom he was sent to minister and to point to the coming Messiah? It was, but it wasn't only that.
It was chiefly against God and He says, God only. evil in God's sight. The thoughts that I hate are
the thoughts I can't stop. The words I don't want to speak
are the words I speak. The deeds I don't want to do
are the deeds I do. If you knew the thoughts that
are in me right now towards those fellas down there, But it's not just what I do,
it's what I was conceived in. Look at verse 5. Behold, I was
shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. You
know, the Scripture says, by one man, by Adam, sin entered
the world, and death by sin. And it says, so death passed
upon all men for that all have sinned. You notice the progression
in that statement? by one man, he was righteous,
made upright, and sin entered in, into the world, and then
death by sin. But death passed to me, and so
all I brought forth was sin. It's not just sin imputed, it's
sin imparted to me. When my mother was impregnated,
she was impregnated with sin. She conceived sin in her womb. That thing that grew in her womb
was sin, and it came forth out of her womb, sin. And because
it was dead in sin, all it did was start speaking lies and blasphemy
against God from the day I was born. The Lord said to Nicodemus, that
which is born of the flesh, that's what it is. That's what it is. Men want to argue about the natures
and two natures and whether a man has a sin nature and a new nature
when he's born of God and all these things. All I know is,
I need to be brought where David
was brought. I need to be brought where I've been brought this
week. Need to be brought where Paul was brought when he said,
Oh, wretched man that I am. Then you'll know. Then you'll
know. If it's reason it don't bother
a man, the reason this sin don't plague a man, the reason it don't,
he don't, he don't mourn it is because he don't have a new nature. When He's made you new, that's
when you mourn this sin. That's when you behold what you
are. That's when it becomes exceedingly sinful. You, what you are, that's
when it becomes exceedingly sinful. And this is what I am by my first
birth. You see these words? Transgressions,
iniquity, and sin. That sums me up right there. All I can do is cast myself on
God and say, Lord, you're justified when you speak. You're justified
when you judge me. You're clear. This is what I
am. Beg God according to His loving
kindness and the multitude of His tender mercies to blot out
my transgressions. Blot out my transgressions. Wash
me throughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin. Can you
acknowledge this about yourself? Can you confess this to God? Is this your only hope and plea
to God? I don't have any nicely wrapped
up doctrinal package for you this morning to give to you.
I'm speaking to you heart to heart. Look at this petition. This next
word is accompanied with faith in what only God is able to do
to the uttermost. Look, he says in verse 6, Behold,
thou desires truth in the inward parts. How am I going to have
that? How am I going to have truth in the inward parts? That's
what God desires. How am I going to have it? In the hidden part, he says,
thou shalt make me to know wisdom. How's that going to happen? It's going to happen by being
born of God. It's going to happen by being
regenerated by God. It's going to happen by being
renewed by God. It's going to happen by being
washed by the Holy Spirit. It's going to happen by Him coming
in the power and operation of His grace and doing a work that
only He can do in the heart. That's what it's going to take. The Lord said, that which is
born of the Spirit, that's what it is, Spirit. Marvel not that
I said you must be born again. The wind blows wherever it will.
It's a hidden thing, and it's a hidden work, and it's in the
hidden part, and it's the inward man. It's a new creature. recreated after the image of
God, renewed with a new spirit, made a partaker of the divine
nature. Christ in you enters in and takes
dominion. But wasn't David born of the
Spirit of God? Wasn't he already a believer? Didn't he already
know who God is? Didn't he already trust God?
Hadn't God already said, this is the one I've chosen, this
is the one I've anointed, this is my king, this is the one I'm
going to raise up and use to be a glorious picture and type
of my only beloved son. What an honor! Isn't that who
he is? That's who he is. That's what
God had done in him already. Why then is he sitting here making
this plea? Because God had done this in
him. That's why. You won't make this plea. You
won't make this confession. You won't fall on your face before
God until God starts this work in you. And when He does, He's
going to continually, every time you get to feeling like you can
build Jerusalem, you can build the walls, you can minister to
the people so that they'll offer up the praise of their lips and
they'll come to God in faith because you've been able to minister
to them and you've strove and you've worked and you've labored. He's going to bring you into
utter total insufficiency and discouragement of your own flesh
to make you look up and see this is His work. It's His salvation. It's His mercy. It's His love
and kindness. It's His righteousness. It's
His holiness. It's His work and He's going
to make His children to praise Him for His wonderful works. Look at him, verse 7. This is
the plea with faith. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall
be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter
than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness,
that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy
face from my sins. Blot out all mine iniquity. Hyssop
was a plant that they used the night that the Lord passed through
Egypt when they were in bondage and they took that blood of that
lamb and they dipped that hyssop in there and they put it all
over the lentils of the outside of the door and they entered
into that house and they stayed put in that house. When the death
passed through Egypt that night and all who were under the blood,
God passed over. because they died in the lamb.
Those firstborn sons died in the lamb. Did you die in the
lamb? Did you die in the lamb? And
that hyssop was used whenever a person discovered that he was
leprous and he had leprosy. He was foul and he was cut off
and he was separated from the people. He was separated from
his family. He was separated from worship of God, from every
privilege of every, just the decency of man. He was totally
cut off because he was a leper. That's what you are in your sin.
And they came and they took hyssop and they dipped it in that and that mixture and that blood
and they sprinkled it on him and they washed him. The man
who'd been out and he'd He was laboring and laboring and laboring,
and he didn't even know that he had come over a grave, and
he didn't even know that there was dead bones in that grave,
and thereby he was completely, totally defiled. Just like you,
who go about, zealous for good works, who know God, you trust
Him, you believe Him, you desire to be found in Him, not having
your own righteousness, but the righteousness which is by the
faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. You desire to be found in Him,
and you don't even know that you've defiled yourself. That's what we need. And David
saw the foreshadow of good things to come. He saw what Christ would
accomplish at Calvary Street. He saw these things and he knew
the only atonement for sin, the only propitiation for sin, the
only way my sin can be purged and blotted out and put away
is in the substitute, in another dying in my place. How is it?
God hide His face from my sin? How can He hide His face from
my sin? How can He blot out my iniquities? How can He do that when I'm guilty
and I deserve for Him to charge me with every sin and to cast
me into hell? How can He do that and still
be just? How can he do that and his love
still mean anything at all? The only way he could do it is
in his son who cried out, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? Why hast thou hid thy face from
me? from the words of my roaring.
And that faithful one, full of faithfulness and fidelity to
his Father, answered the question. And he said, but thou art holy. That's how. That's why. Thou art holy. The curse of the
law was due to my sin. He was made a curse for me. And
Christ Jesus in His own body bore my sins. And He that is
of purer eyes to behold iniquity and can't not look on iniquity
hid His face from my Redeemer. But in doing so, He redeemed
me from the curse of the law. He put away my sin. He blotted
out my sin. And now He says, who shall separate
you from the love of God in Christ? Because he was separated, now
you can't be separated. But how often? How often, believer? Let me ask you something. How
often do you find that your bones are broken? Do you remember what the Lord
did the very first time when He came to Jacob? If you'll go
read the account of Jacob, we looked at this in our Bible study. Jacob didn't wrestle with God.
God wrestled Jacob. And when he saw that he didn't
prevail, when God saw, when Christ saw Jacob didn't prevail with
Him, there's only one way to prevail with Him. It's to beg
Him for mercy. It's to beseech Him. It's to
implore Him. It's to fall on your face where David is here
and beg God for mercy. That's the only way to prevail
with God. And when the Lord saw that Jacob
didn't prevail with Him, you know what He did? He touched
him like he had never been touched, and he broke his joint. He put
his leg out of joint. And when he did that, you know
what Jacob said? Lord, I'm not going to let you go until you
bless me. Lord, I need mercy. Please give me mercy! And he
found mercy. He prevailed with the Lord then,
because the Lord broke his bones. You know what's happened to David? full of sin. It plagued him. It has covered him. And he was
so full of sin and it had clouded him so and it had polluted him
so and defiled him so that whenever Nathan came to him and he told
him that parable of a man who took this one little man's sheep
and he slaughtered it when he had thousands of sheep, David
said, Who is he? We'll kill him. And Nathan said,
It's you. It's you. You don't think when we're talking
about sin, we're talking about somebody else, do you? You don't think when we're talking
about murdering God, playing the harlot, the adulterer against
God Almighty, you don't think we're talking about somebody
else, do you? It's you! It's me. The man standing here in this
place speaking to you, it's me! But when David came to that place,
he wasn't prevailing with God. He couldn't prevail with God.
And you know what God did? God reached forth again, just
like He did in the very beginning, and He touched him. And you know
what He did? He broke his bones. And David hid his face and started
saying, Lord, have mercy on me. He's going to prevail with God
now. That's right. That's when you're
going to prevail with God, when you pitch your face and start
saying, Lord, have mercy. Have mercy. Here's our petition when He does
this, this cry. We cry in this desperation. Here
it is, verse 10. Create in me a clean heart, O
God. Renew a right spirit within me. If He don't do it, I won't have
it. From the first hour and every
hour, I won't have it if He don't do it. Cast me not away from
Thy presence. That's what it feels like. Take not thy Holy Spirit from
me. Restore unto me the joy of thy
salvation. You ever go to these Scriptures
and you look from Scripture to Scripture to Scripture and that
joy that's always been yours, that joy that you always find
in the Scriptures, you go from place to place to place to place
and you can't find any joy? You ever have that happen? You
pray to Him and you can't find any joy? It's like, poor, I feel so sorry
for sinners that don't know the Lord, that try to pretend like
they do and sit and hear the gospel preached, because sooner
or later you're gonna realize we got one message, just one
message, and if this joy is not restored in the heart, if it's
not renewed in the heart, sooner or later we get tired of seeing
the same movie. And that's what it's like. get
tired. You just soon as you start hearing
this words of righteousness and words of redemption and words
of judgment and words of faithfulness and the works of God, you just
glaze over and tune out and it's just like, I've seen this movie
a thousand times. I need God to restore the joy
of my salvation. keep me ever longing after Him,
ever panting after Him as the heart pants after the water brooks.
I need Him constantly to be drawing me, constantly to be pulling
me away from myself to Him. I need Him constantly to be pulling
me out of this world into the city of refuge. That's what I
need constantly, that I might joy in my God. And he says, and uphold me with
thy free spirit. I need him to restore that joy
and hold me with it. Then will I teach transgressors
thy ways. I'll be useful then, and until
then I won't be any use. Then I'll teach transgressors
thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee. Deliver
me from blood guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation. My
tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness." That's how He's
going to deliver me from the murder of His Son, from blood
guiltiness, is by His righteousness. And then when He does that, then
I'll sing of His righteousness. Stop singing of my own. Stop
singing of my will and my way and start singing of His. Oh Lord, I don't want to open my lips. I do not want to open my lips
and say a word to you. I must not do that. I can't do
that. I pray God keep me from that. But here's what I do want. Here's
what I earnestly long for and what I earnestly desire. Oh Lord,
open thou my lips. and my mouth shall show forth
thy praise." And then when you're brought to that place and your
bones are broken and you're praying to God and you're at the end
of yourself. You're at the end of yourself.
You know what you are. A worm. A worm and no man. My grandfather used to have a,
my great grandfather used to have an ice chest, a refrigerator
turned on its back out behind his house full of dirt. And you
could go back there and anything he put in there, food or anything
like that, he was mulching before mulching was cool. Anything you
put in there, you go out there and it'd be turned into dirt.
But anytime we got ready to go fishing, we'd go out there and
take this three-claw tool he had, and we'd dig in there real
good and pull back, and it was just writhing with those slimy
red wigglers, just wrapped over on top of one another and tangled
up on each other and just writhing in there, feeding on death, living
in death, producing dung and death. and struggling with each
other to be the next one to eat the death and live in the death
and produce the death over the other one. That's exactly what
they do. Competing to be death over death. That's what I am. That's what I am. That's what
I gotta be saved from. Worm. Just a worm. Just a maggot. And then he comes
when you're praying and he's And He comes like that seraphim
came. He comes with a call from Christ
our author. And He comes and He says, Lo,
this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquities taken away,
and thy sin is purged. Oh, the joy of your salvation. And he says this to you, that
voice whispers to you, that voice whispers and he says, the blood,
the blood, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all
sin. And he whispers into your heart
and he says, your sins and your iniquities, what sin? I remember it no more. It's put
away. It's blotted out. I remember
it no more. Is your spirit broken? Do you have a contrite spirit? It's broken. It's broken. You can't fix it. You can't. It's just broken. You ever been
just broken? I don't mean broke monetarily.
I mean broken. Just crushed. What I'm trying to tell you is
this. If you come to God that way, and just beg him for mercy, He delights to show mercy. He
delights to show mercy. This is the gospel of a this
broken sinner to you. Verse 16, this is what I can
tell you I know. Our God desires not sacrifice,
else I would give it Thou delight us not in burnt offering." Here's
a man who's under the Mosaic Covenant. Here's a man whose
law says to bring offerings and to bring burnt offering. Here's
the man. And he's saying, Lord, that's not what you're delighting
in. You know what he sees? He sees
what those things picture and typify. He sees what God is saying
through those things. And here's what he's saying.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite
heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. He resisteth the proud, but he
will not despise one who comes casting all his care, everything
about you, now this afternoon, tomorrow, the next day, your
eternal soul's well-being. Lord, I can't save myself, not
even from this moment. I'm utterly, totally, thoroughly
depending upon You. I give myself to You, Lord, if
Thou will. Thou can make me clean. You can
make me whole. You can deliver me. You can bring
me home to my God. That's a broken heart. That's
a contrite spirit. And God never will despise that. That's what he said. Believe
on my son, thou shalt be saved. And so, here I am again. I've
been brought to this insufficiency in myself. And this is what I'm
telling you. This is my prayer now. This is
my prayer. My prayer for this work of God. This work here for you. This
is my prayer. Look at verse 18. Do good in
thy good pleasure unto Zion. Build thou the walls of Jerusalem.
Lord, I can't even create a right spirit within me. I can't build
the walls. I can't save Zion. Lord, you
do it. Not only am I giving you my all
into your hand, Lord, I'm giving you these brethren. I'm giving
you my very loved ones into your hand. Build the city, Lord. Then,
if you've built it, If you have done the work, Lord, then shalt
thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness. with burnt
offering and whole burnt offering. You know why? Because when he's
building the city, this is where he brings us. And then you come
with this broken and this contrite heart, and this is the righteousness
God loves, the righteousness of faith, the righteousness that
says, not I, but Christ, my righteousness. This is the sacrifice God. That's how we give ourselves
a living sacrifice unto God. We come upon the altar of Christ
and say, Lord, I'm yours, lock, stock, and barrel. Then he's
satisfied because he's worked that work. He's built up those
walls. He's brought his people that
way. He's taken every one of his elect stones that makes up
the wall and he's put them right into place and built them up.
And he says, then, then, when he's done this work, shall they
offer bullocks upon thine altar. They'll come with big old, fat,
beautiful, spotless, perfectly righteous, perfectly faithful
calves of their lips and say, Lord, I trust in You alone. And God will
say, I delight in You. I delight in You. Alright.