I want to bring the message from
Psalm 51. Everyone who's born of God can
identify with David here. They can identify with David's
broken heart over his sin. Everyone that's born of God can
identify with him. This Psalm was written after
David had committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband
murdered. Now I know that some will say
I thought that David was a man after God's own heart. And if
that being so, how could he have committed such a horrible crime?
Well, David is no more guilty of murder than anyone else who
has hated his brother without a cause. He's no more guilty
of adultery than the man who has lusted after another woman
in his own heart. The only difference is that God
did not constrain David at that time. He has constrained many
of us. As I heard my pastor say years
ago, don't confuse sovereign constraint for personal holiness.
Sovereign constraint is the reason why people do not commit more
horrible crimes openly. People are going to stand before
God in judgment, guilty of murder and adultery, even though they
may not have committed it openly. God looks on the heart. God looks
on the heart. A man is what he is in the heart,
and God is going to judge him according to his heart, what
his heart was after. The self-righteous believe they're
not guilty of these things. Like that rich young ruler, he
said, I have kept all these things from my youth up. No, no he didn't. He kept some of them outwardly,
but none of them inwardly. If we offend in one point of
the law, we have broken the whole law of God. That's what the scripture
says. Now David makes no excuse for his sin like Adam did. Adam
said, The woman that you gave me, it's her fault. And really
God, it's your fault you gave her to me. You can never cure
a problem until you admit you have one and quit blaming everyone
else. Now let's look at this psalm.
He says, Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness,
according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out
my transgressions. The sinner here, not the king,
but the sinner pleads for mercy. The guilty one pleads for God
to show mercy according to his loving kindness. True godly sorrow
owns up to his transgressions. We make no excuse for our sins. We acknowledge who and what we
are and we need mercy. We need God's loving kindness.
As he said, according to the multitude of thy tender mercies
blot out my transgressions. David knew something of God's
tender mercies. And he knew that God was rich
in mercy, for he had tasted it many times before. And so he
asked God that in his tender mercies to blot out his transgressions. He was not asking God to do something
that was ungodly, but to do that which was just like him to do.
Show mercy and blot out my transgressions. Totally wipe them away. Totally
put them away. I know this, God cannot show
mercy unless he can blot out all my transgressions. He cannot
look the other way as if nothing happened. God must deal with
my sins in me or in my substitute, but they must be dealt with,
they must be put away. So David knew this, and David
knew that God could blot out all his transgressions and be
a just God in doing so through the blood of the Lamb. David
understood something of the gospel. God can do this. The blood of
Christ can cleanse us from all sin. And David says, wash me
throughly from my iniquity. This matter of salvation is more
than just book work. There is a real washing. There
is a real cleansing. He said, wash me throughly. There
is a real cleansing from sin and it begins within. Men wash
the outside of the cup, but it is the inside that we need cleansed. Listen, I not only need my transgressions
blotted out, but I need inward cleansing. Sin affects my whole
being and I need that inward cleansing as well as blotting
out the transgression. Therefore we cry unto God who
alone can forgive sin, who alone can wash me throughly inside
and out. It says in 1 John 1 verse 9,
if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If
we say we have no sin, we call God a liar. The hardest thing
for a man to do is to say I'm guilty. It takes God to bring
a man to that place, to say I'm guilty with no excuses. David
says in verse 3, for I acknowledge my transgressions. We not only
acknowledge our sin, what we are, but acknowledge that everything
we do is tainted with sin. We own up to it. It's my transgressions
and my sin is ever before me. Sin is not something that bothers
me once in a while, but something that I'm aware of all the time.
In this life we are never without sin, but when we are enabled
of God to look to the Lamb of God, we find rest and hope and
peace in that inner man. Now he said, Against thee and
thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. This
is who I really sinned against. The very wickedness of sin is
who it's against, God. God who has given us all that
we have is the one whom we have sinned against. Every sin is
a direct assault on God himself. Note the boldness of sin. And
done this evil in thy sight, every sin we have committed has
been in his sight, in his face, so to speak. Adam sinned in the
light. He knew what he was doing. We
know better. We know better, but we sin anyway.
But I know this, those who are born of God, they own up to it,
and they justify God in his actions toward them. He says here in
verse 4, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest,
and be clear when thou judgest. Whatever God does with me, and
whatever God does with you is right, with no controversy. Whatever
he does with us is right. Now David gets to the root of
the problem. He says in verse 5, Behold I was shapen in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me. When God reveals to a sinner
who and what he is, that sinner acknowledges that the fountain
of his life was polluted, there is none good, no, not one, not
even me. David's not saying that the act
was sinful, he's saying that the seed by which he was conceived
was sinful. He said, Behold, thou desirest
truth in the inward parts. And in the hidden part thou shalt
make me to know wisdom. I'm not going to lie about what
I am. God knows my heart. Be honest. Just be honest with
God. God is a God of truth. He cares
not for pretense. He looks on the heart. He despises
hypocrites. God deals in truth. He deals
in sincerity. He deals in righteousness. And
he says here, in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
In that hidden part, in that inner man, thou shalt make me
to know Christ, who is the wisdom of God. That's who he's talking
about there. Thou shalt make me to know the
Lord Jesus Christ, who is the wisdom of God. Now he says, purge
me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be
whiter than snow. David wanted to be pardoned and
cleansed from his sins, and to be restored to those privileges
which by sin he lost. And the only way for that to
happen was through the appointed means, the sprinkling of the
blood of the Lamb. Forgiveness and cleansing is
not just any old way, it's only through Jesus Christ the appointed
way. Only through Jesus Christ can I be made whole. Only through
His blood can I have atonement for my soul. It is by His blood
that our conscience is purged from dead work to serve the living
God. Then he said, Wash me, wash me
and I shall be whiter than snow. I hear faith in David's voice.
He said, Lord wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. David does
not question the power of the blood. Like the leper, he said,
Lord, if you will, you can make me whole. If you will, you can
make me clean. Wash me, give me real spiritual
purification. If Christ washes us from our
sins in his blood, we shall be whiter than snow. And then he
says, make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which
thou hast broken may rejoice. David's been doing a lot of talking
here. But now he wants to hear God speak. He wants to hear joy
and gladness. He wants to hear God say unto
him, I am thy salvation. He wants to hear God say, Son,
thy sins be forgiven thee. He does not want to hear the
lightning and the thunder of Sinai that says, condemned, condemned
to die. He doesn't want to hear that.
He does not want to hear do's and don'ts. He knows that in
this flesh he cannot please God. He knows that in this flesh dwells
no good thing. He wants to hear God speak. He
wants to hear God say, I am thy salvation. Is this not what we
want to hear? Do we not want to hear God say,
I am thy salvation? Do we not want to hear God say,
Son, thy sins be forgiven thee? The only thing that will cause
a broken spirit to rejoice, a spirit that God has broken through conviction
of sin, The only thing that will cause it to rejoice and keep
it rejoicing is to hear the gospel, to hear the good news, the glad
tidings of the Lord Jesus Christ. David says here in verse 9, hide
thy face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. He's asking
God to do what he cannot do. David's a king. He has a lot
of power. But David cannot blot out his own inequities, his own
sins. But God can do that. God can blot out every one of
your sins through the blood of Christ. And I know this. If he will not hide his face
from my sins and blot them out, he must hide his face from me
and blot me out. Now David says in verse 10, Creating
me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit, within
me, created in me that which I lost in Adam, a clean heart
and a right spirit, a right attitude, a spirit of worship. This matter
of salvation is a creative power of God. He says, for we are His
workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works. The same
power it took for God to create the heavens and the earth, it
takes the same power for Him to create, make you a new creation
in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are not asking God to clean
the old heart. There's nothing you can do with
the old heart but bury it. There's no fixing the old heart.
We need a new heart. We need a heart that loves God,
a heart that hates sin, and a heart that loves the brethren. I hear
these preachers say, let Jesus into your life. He doesn't want
in my stinking life. What does He want to do with
my stinking life? I need His life. We need Him to give us
life. He is not a part of my life. He is my life. If I have life
at all. If I have it, it's because I
have Him. If I don't have Him, I don't have life. He says, cast
me not away from thy presence and take not thy Holy Spirit
from me. Oh, we want to be in His presence. We want to be in
the presence of God. You know what hell is? Hell is
separation from God. That's hell. And he's saying,
don't cast me away like you did Cain from your face in favor.
But permit me to sit among those who share thy love. I deserve
to be cast away, I admit that. But if I have found grace in
thy sight, cast me not away. And take not thy Holy Spirit
from me. Withdraw not his comforts. Withdraw not his counsels. Lord, teach me. And withdraw
not his assistance. Lord, keep up the union. This
is what David's asking. David is asking the Lord here
to keep up the union. If this matter of salvation depends
on me in any way, shape, or form at any given time, it's going
to fail. Now, it will fail if it depends
on us for anything whatsoever, it will fail. But if it all depends
upon Him, if it all depends upon the Lord Jesus Christ, it will
not fail. Lord, keep up the union. Lord,
you keep this union up. Keep me by your power through
faith. Lord, keep me. Okay. Until next
time, may God bless.