Turn back to Psalm 6. It's interesting when you think
that David had this psalm put to a song. When he had such painful
experience that he would put it to a song and sing about it.
Sing about it. This psalm is one of the seven
psalms said to be a psalm of repentance. And truly we can hear the cry
of a broken heart in this psalm. The reason I titled it, The Painfulness
of Guilt. The Painfulness of Guilt. When
God, when God visits, the pain of guilt and sin upon
the soul. It can be a painful experience.
Now, we can't judge our experience right now compared to His or
someone else's. The Lord puts us through the
degree of repentance that's necessary for the situation, if I can say
it that way. Some of the writers that I was
reading said that this was written after he committed adultery with
Bathsheba, and then some as here, it's just not mentioned. And I think the sin that's troubling
David so much is not mentioned here for this reason. We have
a tendency to catalog sin Instead of running it to its source,
you know, we say, well, I haven't done that, so I don't feel so
bad. But the same heart that adultery comes from, a lie comes
from, murder comes from, every sin, every sin comes from the
same place, comes from the same place. And it's evident now that
whatever the sin was that's troubling David, and it probably may have
been that incident, it was against God, and God was dealing with
him. And He was dealing with him pretty
rough, severely. But I tell you what, no matter
how severe God deals with me over something, anything short
of hell is easy. Anything short of eternal torment
is easy. It really is. But the sin here
is against God. The evil of sin is always this. It is who it is against. You know, I may do something
against Doug, but it's not against you, but I can't do anything
against anyone that's not against God first. It's always against
Him first. When David committed adultery
and he had her husband killed, he said in Psalm 51, against
thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. He went right to the Lord and
said, Lord, with you looking on, in thy sight, right in your
face, right in your face, I did this. I did this. And there's no guilt like guilt,
the guilt of sinning against light. It's one thing of the
sin of what we call ignorance, but the more light we have and
the still sin against God like we do, It's amazing, isn't it? It's amazing. But before I get
into this psalm, I read some things from Thomas Watson that
I thought was good. I just sketched out a few of
them. I didn't write many. He had 20 points on this one thing
here. Some thoughts on sin. Let me
throw a few of them out here at you. And then we can look
at this psalm. Sin is a turning away from God. It is always, in every case,
a turning away from God. It is going in the opposite direction
of God. Sin always takes us away from
God, just as darkness takes us away from the light. The further
one goes from the light, the darker it gets. Sin always takes
us from God. And then secondly, sin is contrary
to God. Sin is the total opposite of
God Almighty. Whatever God says, sin says,
I'm doing the other. Whatever God says, sin does the
other. It moves us to do the other. Ungodly means unlike God. Unlike God. And then sin is filthy. It's filthy. You know, the Greek
word for filthy means the putrid matter of ulcers. Well, it is written in Isaiah. I thought I had it written down
here, but he says that you're just a running sore in my sight. You've neither been bound up
or mollified. You're nothing but a running sore in my sight. Sin is filth. It's filth. And then sin is ingratitude.
It's ingratitude. When we consider God's care and
God's provision for us, not only in the temporal things, but in
Christ. He has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ.
And when we consider that, then to use all these things in a way that's not glorifying
to God. That's sin, isn't it? That's
just sin. And then sin is a debt to God's justice. We owe a great
debt of obedience that we cannot pay. And after I wrote that,
I thought before coming down here, someone better pay it because
it's not going to go away. It's not going to just go away.
It's got to be paid. It's got to be dealt with. And
then sin is spiritual sickness. Here's where I wrote it down,
Isaiah 1.5. Why should you be stricken anymore? You will revolt
more and more. The whole head is sick and the
whole heart is faint. This is sin. This is what sin
is in us. It's what we are by nature. Sin
is what we are by nature. And then sin is bondage. In Romans
6.16, Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants
to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey? Whoever it is or whatever it
is you obey, that's your master. That's your master. Whether of
sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness. Now, in light
of this, let's look at this Psalm. In verses 1 through 7, we have
sorrow for sin, we have humiliation for sin,
and then we have the hatred, hatred of sin. There is a real
hatred of sin. Now, in verse 1, David knows,
as we know, that his sins, as well as our sins, deserve rebuke. He says here, "'O Lord, rebuke
me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.'"
He's not asking God not to rebuke him and not to chasten him. He's
saying, don't do it in anger. The word anger there, the translation
of it is wrath. We can't bear God's wrath. The
psalmist said, Lord, if you should mark iniquities, who shall stand? If God marks them, who shall
stand? Well, He does mark them. And He marked our sins on Christ. And He's the only one who is
able to stand and bear the punishment. and satisfy justice. Listen to Habakkuk 3.2, O LORD,
I have heard Thy speech and was afraid. O LORD, revive Thy work
in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known,
in wrath remember mercy. in wrath, remember your mercy.
Turn over to Jeremiah 10. I want you to read this over
here in Jeremiah. In Jeremiah 10, let me find the
verse. Verse 24, find verse 24. This is the prayer of our hearts,
the believer's heart. O Lord, correct me, but with
judgment, not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing."
Correct me, yes, I need correction, I need chastening. Listen, discipline
and chastening is proof of God's love. And then discipline and
correction is the way God teaches us to go. And that's why Jeremiah here,
he says, correct me, but with judgment, and not in thine anger. You know, I've learned this,
but, well, it's probably too late now, but, and I know you,
any of you that's had children, you've corrected them many times
in anger. Just out of anger, you've corrected them. And that's
exactly what the prophet and that's what David said, Lord,
don't correct me in anger because I'm sure he corrected his sons,
his children in anger, and he knows that's not what I want
to deal with. And that's not the way you correct
your children. If we correct them properly,
if we do it properly, we do it in wisdom and we do it in love. We don't always do it properly.
I know that. I know we lose our temper. But here's a good lesson. Here's a good lesson for any
parent. Correct your children in love and in wisdom. Let wisdom
guide the rod, not anger. Let love guide the rod, not anger. over in 1 Corinthians. I don't
have this marked, but let me see if I can find this. 1 Corinthians
11. Let's see what this is. I know what
it says, but I can't quote it verbatim, so we'll read it. In 1 Corinthians 11, look in
verse 31-32. For if we would judge ourselves,
we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are
chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with
the world." We judge ourselves. What did the prophet say? Correct
me, correct me, but not in anger. I recognize I need your chastening
rod, but I need your chastening rod in love, to be wielded with
love and not anger. Now listen, he says, "'O Lord,
rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot
displeasure.'" He gives what we need, what he needs and what
we need in this time that we have sinned, and guilt lying
heavy on the conscience. I mean, this situation is a very
difficult situation, and it probably was over this matter of adultery.
He says here in verse 2, "'Have mercy upon me, O Lord, in your
correction of me, and I deserve it. But in your correction on
me, have mercy.'" Have mercy. There's two reasons for, Lord,
I ask for mercy. Number one, I'm weak. You see,
true repentance is always accompanied by humiliation. It's always accompanied
by humiliation. He says, have mercy upon me,
Lord. I'm weak. I have no strength
to overcome indwelling sin. It's like this. I knew not to
do that, but I did it. And Lord, if you don't help me,
I'll do it again. I know my weakness. I'm weak. I'm weak. I need help. I need
your help. I don't need the help. See, this
is something the physician down the road can't help me with.
He cannot help me with this. He cannot give me a pill to make
this go away. I need God to help me, because
he asked for healing here in a minute. It starts with mercy
before it starts with healing. Have mercy upon me, O Lord. I
am weak. I can't overcome this, nor can
I stand against your wrath. And I cannot listen. Here's the
real guilt of sin. Well, it's who it's against.
And I cannot undo it. I knew I shouldn't have done
it. I did it. And now I can't undo it. But
Lord, you can. You're the only one who can. You're the only one who can put
this away. This problem has taken away even my physical health.
He said here, I am weak, oh Lord, heal me. My bones are vexed. Whatever this was, whatever this
situation brought this on, it went all the way to the bones. I tell you, it's amazing what
guilt will do. It will break you down. It can drive you out of your
mind. It can do that. And He says here, I'm weak, oh
Lord, heal me. Give me spiritual healing. Remember
that in the scripture it says, as many as needed healing, He
healed. He knew that. And you, as children of God,
you know that all healings of God, spiritual healing, and physical
healing. He knew he needed soul healing,
we'll get to this, but he also knew that the disease or the
sickness that was wracking his body, only God could heal it. He said, I know that you can
do this. There's no earthly physician
can do for me what I need. You remember that woman with
the issue of blood? It says, she tried every physician for
12 years and was none the better, but rather grew worse. She spent
all her living upon all these physicians. And she came to the
absolute end of herself. And then, then she heard of the
Lord Jesus Christ and went to Him. And He healed her. He healed her. And then He says here, Verse
3, My soul is also sore vexed. Which is the most difficult to
deal with? Guilt on the soul or body pain? I think guilt on the soul. I
take body pain over that any day. Here is the deepest part of my
being, whatever this was and that God was convicting him of.
God's at work on him. Whatever it was, it went to the
very core of His existence, my soul. I never sin without my
soul. I mean the very core of my being
is involved in it. Sin reaches all the way to our
soul and it hurts when God makes it known. By nature we are like
a polluted fountain. Sin comes from within. Sin does not come from without
into me. It always comes from within,
out of me. Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries,
and so on. Soul trouble is the most painful
trouble. That is where God operates. God
operates in the heart. And He does it without anesthetic.
He doesn't put you to sleep. He wakes you up and then does
surgery. Listen here to Proverbs 17, 22.
A merry heart doth good like a
medicine, but a broken spirit dryeth the bones. It goes all
the way to the bones. I mean, it not only affects the
soul, the mental, the emotions, it affects the body. The whole
man is affected by it. But thou, O Lord, how long? How long before I find mercy? Here's a lesson. Let us not take
mercy for granted. I know a man, and this man, He
made a religious profession years ago, and he's an old man now. He was an Armenian, and back
when I knew him, when I was just a teenager, you know, 19, 18,
19, 20 years old. And every time he would tell
me a story, he'd be telling me something. He said, well, if
I'm wrong, Lord, forgive me. That was just a catchphrase with
him. I look back now, back then I didn't know anything. I thought
that sounded pretty good. That meant nothing to him. That
was just a catchphrase to him. If I'm wrong, the Lord forgive
me. Maybe he will, maybe he won't. There's mercy with the Lord that
he may be feared. Don't take it for granted. Don't take it for granted. How
long before I find mercy? How long before you return in
favor? How long before I find relief in the Lord Jesus Christ? How long? How long? How long?
As long as necessary. It'll be as long as it takes
for you and me to learn the lesson. He knows how long, but I know
what he's saying, how long before you return in mercy and grace? David said in Psalm 51, restore
unto me the joy of thy salvation. He had lost the, you can lose
the joy of salvation. You can lose the sense of God's
presence by sin. You can lose it. You cannot lose
your salvation because it's not dependent on you, but you can
lose the joy of it You can lose it. And that's why David's saying,
Oh, how long return to me. I just sense he feels so filthy. He feels so filthy. He feels
so guilty. He has sinned against God. He
has sinned against light. He has sinned against grace.
He has sinned against mercy. I have taken God's grace and
mercy for granted. You remember over in Song of
Solomon when the Lord came and knocked on the door and she said,
I've put off my clothes, I've taken a bath, I've put off my
shoes. It's like, I don't have time
for you. I don't have time for you. And then when he drew her
with his love, you know, he said he put his hand on the handle
and it dripped with myrrh. You know, that's love, love dripped
and it broke her and she came to the door and he was gone.
You know why? He's the sovereign. We are not
the sovereign. He's the head. He's the husband.
He's the sovereign. And she's not. And he's going
to teach her a lesson. And he was gone. And then she
went to the streets and she started crying. Have you seen him? Who
my soul loveth? You shouldn't have taken him for granted. And
we all do. We all do. We take this for granted.
More than we think. More than we think. RETURN, O LORD, DELIVER MY SOUL,
O SAVE ME FOR THY MERCY'S SAKE. David, I can say the sinner, departed
for sin. Now he is brought back by the
grace of God. God's at work here. God's at
work at convicting, and God's at work at holding him. God's
at work at convicting him, and God's at work at moving him to
even pray this. Let me ask you this. He says,
Return, O Lord, deliver my soul. Who actually left? He did, not
God. The Lord didn't leave. He's always
in the same place. He's the same yesterday, today,
forever. He's always on the throne. He didn't leave. David left.
David left. You know, if you go over in Revelation,
and read the letters to the churches, and the ones he wrote letters
to, and they had problems, and he said this, if you don't straighten
up, I'm gonna remove the candlestick. The problem was never with him.
When the gospel leaves a group, it's never with the Lord. It's
with the people. It's with the people. God never
left. Sin causes us to lose the joy
of salvation. And he says this, Oh, save me. How many times have you said
that since God saved you? Pretty much every day. Lord, save me. Forgive me. Every
time you ask God to forgive you, every time you ask for mercy,
you're asking God to save you. Save me. Oh, listen, save me from indwelling
sin. That is too powerful for me.
That's too powerful. Save me from temptation. Lead
us not into temptation. Save me from it. And save me
for Christ's sake. Oh, for Christ's sake, forgive
me. You know, God can forgive me for Christ's sake and for
no other reason. Outside of Christ, no other reason. Then he gives an argument here
for life and for mercy. For in death there is no remembrance
of thee, in the grave who shall give thee thanks? This was so
bad, this verse tells me, this was so bad, he thought he was
going to die. He thought he was going to die,
that's how bad it got. But I tell you what, the Lord chasing his
hand is so heavy upon him because he loved him. He loved him. Sin deserves death. He knows
it. You know that. You and I know
that. It deserves death. The wages
of sin is death. And there's people dying every
day, going to hell, receiving their wages. And I know. But by the grace of God, I ought
to go right there with them. I know that. I know that. And he's saying here, Lord, those
who die in their sins do not remember your grace. They do
not remember you in praise and honor. He's making an argument. Don't be afraid to argue with
God at the throne of grace. There's a way to argue in respect.
I tell you what, if you're about to drop off, you're going to
be arguing. If you're about to drown, And I tell you what, you'll be
shouting, you'll be... The kingdom of heaven suffers
violence and the violent take it by force. He says here, Lord, and this
is an argument, in death there's no remembrance of don't let me
die with the wicked. He felt so bad about what he
had done that he figured He thought I could die with them and God
be a just God. If I die with them, he'll be
a just God. He'll be a just God. I thought this today, the graveyard
is a silent place. All who lay there have run their
race. They have nothing else to say. All that they've ever
had to say is done. It's done. Nobody there who's
lost, they won't praise you. They won't
praise you. In the grave, who's going to
give you thanks? In the grave, it's over. As a
tree falls, so shall it lie. And then look here at the weariness
of sin. It wears us out. Sin will absolutely
wear you out. If God convicts of sin, now don't
go measuring yourself by someone else's experience, because I
tell you this, repentance is not something you did some years
ago and that's it. Repentance is something you will
do the rest of your life as a believer until God puts you in the grave.
And I believe the older you get, the sharper it gets. The sharper it gets, you know
why? Because the older you get, the more light you have. If you're
growing in grace and knowledge of Christ, sin will wear a believer out
if the Lord does not give relief. He said, I am weary with my groaning. There's no, I can't put worse
to this. Later after he did this, he put
it to music. It was so important to him. But at this time, he
said that my groanings all night, listen, make I my bed to swim. He cried himself to sleep. You ever do that? Ever do that? The guilt of sin. I water my
couch with my tears. You know, here's another Psalm
of David in Psalm 32. When I kept silence, this is
the one that was written after Bathsheba. I kept silence, I
tried not to confess it, own up to it, just, you know, it's
like, I won't do that again. Well, when I kept silence, my
bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and
night thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture is turned into
the drought of summer. I acknowledge my sin unto thee."
Look what it took for him to do it. You see what he said before
he says this? It took that for him to acknowledge
it. Why does it take us so long to say guilty? Why does it take
us so long to try to justify ourselves and God has to bring
us to the very end of ourselves, bring us to the miserable part
of self, and we say, I've sinned. Nobody's fault. Nobody's fault.
It wasn't Bathsheba's fault for being down there bathing. No,
that's not her fault. That's mine. I should have turned
around and went back in. Job said, I have made a covenant
with my eyes. Why should I look upon a maid? He knew it'd be a disaster. It'd
be a disaster. I acknowledge my sin unto thee,
and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my
transgressions unto the Lord, and listen, as soon as he did
that, as soon as he said, I will confess my transgressions unto
the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. It was
over. It was over. And I have to say,
get this, one thing about God, when it's over, he doesn't bring
it back up again, like we do with our kids. I told you, remember
I told you that? You know, it's just like you
never let it go. If you're disciplined over it, forget it. Let it go.
Quit bringing it up. God doesn't. That's what he said.
You forgave the iniquity and he doesn't bring it back up.
But we have a hard time letting anybody forget until it comes
to us doing it. And we say, why don't you forget
that? Well, that's because we need
a little taste of our own medicine. We're all just birds of a feather
flock together. Sin affects the heart and the
heart is the seed of our emotions. You know, a hard heart has no
grief over sin. This is good what's going on
here. This is medicine. This is healing. What did he
say? Lord, heal me? Well, that's exactly what's going
on. He's healing him. Healing comes with confession. There's no healing of the soul
without confession of sin. Guilty. I told someone a few
years ago, this person had some problems, this lady, and I told
her, I said, you know that, I said, I think 90% of the cure is admitting
you got a problem. Quit fighting it. You got a problem,
deal with it. And verse 7, mine eyes consumed
because of grief, it waxes old because of all my enemies. The
eye gate is flooded with tears. You know, God has given us eyes
and he's given us tear ducts. And you know, he said in one
place, all thy tears are in my bottle. He said, I've got them all. He
remembers every tear you've ever cried. I mean, I don't remember
the ones I've cried 20 years ago, 40 years ago. God does. God does. He said he has them
in his bottle. You can look into someone's eyes
and you can see pain. You can. You can see pain. You
can see something's going on. Something's going on. But now listen, and I'll try
to hurry up here, I didn't think it'd take this long. Where there's
true repentance, there's always, always, always
true faith. It'll rise to the top. First
of all, you wouldn't repent if you didn't believe. You wouldn't
do it. It says in Hebrews 11.6, "...but
without faith it is impossible to please Him. For he that comes
to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of
them that diligently seek Him." Faith believes that God will
forgive, that He will show mercy. The consequences of my sin may
last a lifetime, but God can forgive them. God can forgive
all sins. though the consequence may last
a lifetime." The sword never left David's house. It never
left his house. It is always this way, repentance
toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. My aunt said to
me years ago, I don't know that she ever went anywhere to any
kind of religious service. But she said to me once, she
goes, I've been asking for forgiveness, but I can't get anywhere. And
I know she was looking for a feeling. You know, you got to get this
warm, fuzzy feeling. I said, well, the scripture says
repentance toward God, faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's the only reason God can forgive me. His blood answers
for my sins. Now, if you do not believe and
look to the Lord Jesus Christ, repentance that you're calling
repentance is nothing but worldly sorrow. That's all it is. Godly
sorrow leads to life and you don't need to repent of it again.
But this worldly sorrow, it just never goes away. Never goes away. DEPART FROM ME, ALL YOU WORKERS
OF INIQUITY!" They're all standing around, and I said, Aha! You messed up this time, didn't
you? You messed up this time. Another prophet said, REJOICE
NOT OVER ME, O MY ENEMIES, THOUGH I FALL, YET SHALL I RISE AGAIN. Don't get too happy yet. God's
not done with me. Depart from me, all you workers
of iniquity, for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping."
This is confidence. This is confidence. The buzzards
have gathered around. They think they're going to have
a feast on David. And he says, the Lord has heard
the voice of my weeping. You better leave. You better
get out of town. You're in trouble. The Lord... Listen, in Christ, sinners are
heard. God hears their cry for mercy. Our high priest presents our
prayers. The Lord has heard my supplication.
The Lord will receive my prayer. That's confidence. That's absolute. That's faith. That's faith. In
repentance, there's always faith. The Lord will receive my prayer. It's from the heart. You know,
Peter said once when the Lord said, Peter, do you love me?
Third time it grieved Peter to the heart. He said, Lord, you
know all things. You know I love you. Isn't it
good he knows all things? Yes, he knows my sins, but he
knows I love him. He knows that you hunger and
thirst after righteousness. He knows that. At the throne of grace, our prayers
are received through our Lord Jesus Christ. It says in 1 John
1.7, But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have
fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ
His Son cleanses us from all sin. Verse 10, Let all mine enemies
be ashamed. and sore-vexed. Let them be sore-vexed."
You know, it's one thing to be sore-vexed in the soul when God's
convicted of sin, but it's a whole other matter to be sore-vexed
in hell. That's never-ending. That won't end. He said, they're going to be
sore-vexed, but in a different way. "...Let them return and
be ashamed." Suddenly, Suddenly. As for my enemies, they shall
be ashamed, but not for me. I'm not going to be ashamed.
Not in the end. When this is over with, all this guilt and all
this shame and all this downfalling and all this is going to be over. And I'll never do it again. It'll
be over. Oh, when sin will molest me no
more. And that'll be done with. I can't
even imagine what that's like. All I've known is sin. All you've
known is sin. You're born in sin and shaped in iniquity. You
know that. But to actually know what it is to never ever have
sin, a sinful thought, temptation, nothing. It's pure holiness and
righteousness. Now to the ungodly, that's boring.
But to the godly, what a day that's going to be. or today. The sins, listen, that I weep
over. Here's faith. I thought about
this today. Here's faith. The sin that I
weep over has already been dealt with and put away. Already. That's the pain of, that's a
painfulness of guilt. But brethren, if God has saved
us, that's also the healing process.
He's got to bring us through this. I would far rather God
convict me of sin than leave me alone. Don't leave me alone.