We'll be looking in Psalm 51. Psalm 51. I cannot think of a more fitting
psalm that should bring us to this place where we remember
the Lord's death until He comes again than this one. I made mention of the fact, I
think I did anyway, that Psalm 50 was even as a precursor
to this Psalm. As the Lord says, I will take no bullock out of
thy house, nor he goats out of thy foals, for every beast of
the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know
all the fowls of the mountains, the wild beasts of the field
are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee, for the world
is mine, and the fullness thereof. Will I eat the flesh of bulls,
or drink the blood of goats? Offer unto God thanksgiving and
pay thy vows to the Most High. And of course, David will comment
upon that very thing in this psalm. And the name of this psalm,
the title that's put here is, To the Chief Musician, A Psalm
of David, When Nathan the prophet came unto him after he had gone
in to Bathsheba. Have mercy upon me, O God, according
to thy lovingkindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender
mercies. Blot out my transgressions. Wash
me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For
I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin as ever before me.
Against thee, thee only have I sinned, and done this evil
in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest,
and 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, and in the hidden part thou shalt make me
to know wisdom. 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, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in
me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence,
and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the
joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors
thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee. Deliver
me from blood guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation, and
my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. O Lord, open
thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. For thou
desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it. Thou delightest
not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken
spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Do good in thy good pleasure
unto Zion. Build thou the walls of Jerusalem. Then shalt thou be pleased with
sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offerings and whole
burnt offering. Then shall they offer bullocks
upon thine altar. And so, we all are probably acquainted
with David with the substance, the background story of this
psalm and David's sin with Bathsheba. And you know, we often hear men
speak of the chastening of the Lord. And many men would look
at David And they would say, yes, the Lord chastened him because
he went in to Bathsheba. But I believe if you look at
the context and study the work of God and the chastening of
His people, I would put forth to you this, that the beginning
of David's chastening, of course we know that all of God's children
are continually being chastened. We think of chastening as that
which comes as a result of something somebody does. But the chastening
of God's people does not come upon them as a result of something
they do. It comes upon them because of
who they are. The Lord said, that if you are
not chastened, then you are a bastard and not a son, that you don't
belong to me. He said, for whom I love, I chasten. And so the chastening of the
Lord is the continual working of the Lord in the lives of His
people. And David's chastening didn't
begin after he had sinned with Bathsheba. David's chastening
began before he ever took the first step up those steps to
the rooftop to look on Bathsheba. Now, you know, a lot of people,
they want to, they're looking for ways to accuse God. And they
would like to say, well, you're saying then that the Lord calls
David to sin. And of course that's a fine line
and a ticklish subject to deal with. James said, let no man
say when he is tempted that I am tempted of God. And then he goes
on to say where did the temptation come from? David was tempted
because of his own wicked heart. Same reason that Adam took of
that fruit in the garden because he had the propensity to sin. David confesses it. He said,
in sin, he says, I was shapen in iniquity. He said, I was a sinner. I was
made a sinner. He says, that's how I came forth
into this world. Now, the natural man doesn't
want to think that, because the natural man wants to think that
everybody starts out at ground zero, you know, and then some
might never really do anything much wrong, and they just kind
of are good people. And then you've got the bad people.
But David confesses. I mean, here's a man that the
Lord said that he was a man after God's own heart. Here's a man
whom the Lord blessed greatly and mightily and he loved him.
And he blessed him. And he chastened him. Because
he loved him. David, as many of us Or in this
particular case, he had grown satisfied. It came time to go
out to battle. He said, eh, I'll let the younger
people take over. I'm going to sit back and enjoy
it. He wasn't much different really
than the old rich man, you know, that looked upon all his goods.
And he said, oh, take thy knees. You know, you've got many goods
laid up for me. There's no need for you to go.
The Lord will bring His people exactly where He wants them to
be. And He designs our life to bring us to the exact place that
He would have us to be. Now I'm thankful for that. You know, we don't live in a willy-nilly
existence. Now we are what we are. And David
didn't have to go in to Bathsheba in order to be labeled a sinner,
did he? What that was was just a manifestation of his sin. He
manifested what was in his heart. And every one of us, apart from
the mercy of God, will manifest the most gross and wicked sins
imaginable. The only thing that keeps any
of us back from total destruction is the mercy of God. Only thing. We are like moths flying around
the light. And you know an old moth will
fly around that thing and eventually that thing will burn him up.
I mean it will get him eventually. And so David is brought to a
place of understanding this in a light that he never could have
seen. Had he not committed this sin, he would have never written
this Psalm, would he? I mean, when we're speaking hypothetically. Now, the Lord ordained that Psalm
51 was going to be written before David was ever born. There was
going to be a Psalm 51. And if there was going to be
a Psalm 51, there had to be a situation that arose that calls Psalm 51
to be written. Now you can think of that any
way you want to think of it, but just know this, that our
God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever He hath
pleased. And He has designed all things
to manifest His mercy and His grace to those people that He
loves with an everlasting love. And this is no different right
here as we see this. Think of the untold blessing
that the Lord has poured out upon His people in coming to
Psalm 51 and reading it and saying, Lord, that's me. Because, you
see, it's the children of God who are called to know and understand
this. Now, I believe there are some
aspects of this Psalm that are really ever-man. At certain times, I
can't say every man, but most men, I'll say this, women, I'm
including women and men, you have to be careful when you speak
about men and women these days. But the Bible, that's the only
thing the Bible knows about, it's men and women. I mean, they're
not something else. And so that's the way that it
is. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness.
Now, who wouldn't want God's lovingkindness poured out on
them? I mean, everybody wants the blessings
of God, don't they? I mean, you can't go anywhere
and somebody will say, have a blessed day. Now, you know, I don't know
how to react to that sometimes. Have a blessed day. Well, what
does that mean? What could you do to have a blessed
day? You know, have a blessed day.
Well, what are you going to do? I mean, can you have a blessed
day? Where does a blessed day come
from? It has to come from outside yourself, doesn't it? I mean,
you can't make your day blessed except the Lord makes it blessed.
So may the Lord bless your day. That would probably be a better
way to say that, but you know, I'm not going to try to instruct
people on how to speak, but most anybody wants blessings
of God, if you got right down to it, whether they would put
it in those words or not. But David's talking about something
here that's beyond just the blessing. that the natural man has understanding
of. I mean, the natural man, he knows
there's a difference between going broke and making a million
dollars. And he would say making a million
dollars is a blessing. But see, the sons of God know
that making a million dollars might not be a blessing. You know, it might not be the
best thing for you. So it might not be a blessing,
but what men call blessings are not necessarily blessings. David would not have thought at this
moment in time that what he had done with Bathsheba was a blessing. But as he reflected upon his
life And he thought of where he could have gone and what he
could have done and what could have ultimately been the result
of it had God cast him off as a result of these things. He
said, what a blessing that God stopped me in my tracks. Because you see, God did stop
David because David was in the midst of not just simply having
committed this act of sin with Bathsheba. But he murdered her
husband. A noble man. As men go, a good
man. A faithful man. A man whose righteousness
insofar as men are concerned exceeded David's by a thousand
times. And David cold-bloodedly had
him put to death to hide his sin. So David's sin was not just
that he went in to Bathsheba, that was in itself an awful thing,
but that was not the sum total of David's sin. But he was brought,
you see when Nathan the prophet came to him, And David in his
self-righteousness, as Nathan was describing this to him, and
he's thinking, man, I'm going to get this guy, whoever would
do a terrible thing like this that you've described. And the
prophet looked at him and he said, thou art the man. And you see, at that moment in
time, the Lord's mercy was poured out on David because David was
brought to see what he was by nature. And he says, I have sinned. He said, I have done this. I
can't go away from it. Now a lot of times men get mad
when you point out their sin. But you see, the children of
God, they might initially get mad about it, but you know, when
the Lord in mercy enables them to see what they really are and
what really the deal was, They're smitten in the heart. They can't
help but be. There's no escaping it. You cannot escape. If you
belong to the Lord, you cannot escape the hand of the Lord to
teach you that you are a sinner worthy of destruction. You can't
do it. He'll bring you there every time.
Sometimes it takes longer than others, but He does bring His
people to that place. Have mercy upon me, O God. And
everybody wants mercy. According to the multitude of
thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. He is not just saying, Lord, forgive
me for I have sinned. He said, Lord, stifle these things. Just make it disappear. according to the multitude of
thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions." Now what is
a transgression? You know the word transgression
is used in the Scriptures many times. A transgressor and a sinner
have many things in common. All men are sinners. All men
are transgressors. But there is a certain consideration
which the Scripture speaks of when it is speaking of transgressions
that actually exceeds the matter of just sin. Transgression is
an open rebellion against the things of God. See, oftentimes
we sin, we just kind of fall into it, and then we think later,
man, you know, that was bad. But then there are times when
we come face to face with the truth of God, and we look at
it and we say, we know this is the right way, but we are going
to go the other way. You see, that's what a transgression
is. That's an open rebellion against what we know. A transgression is not when somebody
does something to you and you get mad and curse at them or
say something like that. That's sin for sure. It's a terrible
thing. I'm not trying to lessen that
in any way. But when you come to the Word
of God and the Lord said, forgive somebody, and you say, I ain't
going to do it. I know I ought to forgive him,
but I ain't going to do it. I know I need to go this way,
but I'm going to go that way. See, that was what David did.
Because when David, every step of the way, along the way, David
came face to face with that which he knew in the depths of his
soul, and no doubt the Spirit of God bore witness in his heart
and said, David, don't do that. And David went on, and he did
it. Now those that tell us God helps
those that help themselves are in a dilemma here, aren't they?
Because David didn't do anything to help himself, did he? He did
everything to bring himself to destruction, and would have gone
to destruction had the Lord in mercy not drawn him back unto
himself. According, blot out my transgressions,
O Lord! Take these things from me. Don't
let me go in that way. Wash me thoroughly from mine
iniquity. That sin that boils up within
me and cleanse me from my sin. You see, here again, iniquity,
that's a little bit different than sin. Although both are sin,
but the sin of a man is just what he is. I mean, sin is not
what you do. People talk about, well, is that
a sin? See, most people wonder about what's a sin. Is that a
sin or is this a sin? Brethren, that's the least of
our concern, really. Is this a sin or is that a sin?
It's the iniquity that's in our hearts. You see, it's that part
of us that's shaped in it that runs to sin. That's the part
that we need help with. I mean, sin is a terrible thing,
but it is that propensity to sin, the iniquity of our heart,
the love of sin. Wash me thoroughly, oh cleanse
me. For I acknowledge my transgressions."
You see, he said, I openly and plainly, without any
excuse, defied what I knew to be right and I rebelled against
your word. I acknowledge my transgressions
and my sin, the activity of my wicked flesh is ever before me. Cleanse me from it. For I acknowledge
my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only have
I sinned. Now, technically, that wouldn't
be true, would it? Because David sinned against
Bathsheba. He sinned against Uriah. He sinned against the nation. But you see, all of those things
are secondary. Now the average man, he gets
sorry for the things that he does and the people that he offends.
And that's a good thing. I'm not against somebody being
sorrowful for what they did and apologizing. But that's not the
trouble that we have. I mean, that is a problem we
have when we sin against our brethren. But, dear brethren,
that kind of pales in comparison to what David's talking about
here, does it not? He said, "...against thee, and
thee only have I sinned." He said, it wouldn't matter, all
these other things don't even make any difference, Lord, but
it's You that I have sinned against. Now that's the place, you see,
that the natural man can't come. He can't come there. Because,
you see, David is speaking from a broken heart, not just an apologetic
heart. But he's coming to it from a
place where he is crushed. And he said, against thee and
thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. He said,
I didn't just sneak around and do it where you couldn't see
it. He said, I did it openly. I knew when I was doing it that
it was wrong, and yet I just was compelled to go forward with
it. and done this evil in thy sight,
that thou may be justified when thou speakest and clear when
thou judgest." He said, whatever you say, Lord, is going to be
right. He said, if you destroy me right
this moment, I will just have gotten what I deserve. How foolish is the thinking of
men that they will come one day and stand before Almighty God
and they'll plead their case. Oh Lord, I did this. Oh Lord,
I did that. How foolish. But oh, the sons of God must
put their hands upon their mouth and say, Lord, you're right. Your judgments against me are
true. I don't have a leg to stand on.
Just like the old top lady, you know the Lord really gave him
an understanding and the ability to put in verse the very essence
of what David is talking about here. Nothing in my hand I bring,
simply to thy cross I cling, naked come to thee for dress.
Helpless look to thee for grace. Thou lie to the fountain fly.
Wash me, Savior, or I die. In sin was I shapen in iniquity. Lord, your judgment is right.
I was shapen in iniquity. In sin did my mother conceive
me. As I said, this is a place that
men don't like to go. I mean, you're not going to find
very many people today talking about this because you know this
is a thing that's kind of negative, isn't it? Well, you don't want
to tell somebody something negative. You don't want to tell a guy
that he's just a no-count sinner. I mean, you just tell him, well,
you made a few mistakes in your life. You know, but the Lord's
just waiting, and He's going to help you overcome all these
things that you've done. Wrong. He wasn't listening to none of
that because he knew better than that. He didn't want one of these
positive thinking preachers coming and telling him everything was
going to be alright. He says, I'm a sinner. I was
made in sin and I'm conceived in sin and I'm loaded with sin
from head to foot. And apart from thy mercy, it
will overcome me. The term total depravity, you
ever heard anybody talk about total depravity? Now I know we talk about it,
but I'm talking about, that's just a term you've never heard.
Totally depraved, what do you mean? You know Hitler, he was
totally depraved. Jeffrey Dahmer, he was totally
depraved. And men don't like to think of
themselves in that term, do they? Total depravity. But whoever
coined the term, they got it right. It's like
they've changed, you know, the words to some of the hymns. Amazing
grace how sweet the sound saved a wretch like me. Ain't no other word that'll fit
in there and be right, is there? But you see, only the children
of God can be brought to a place of understanding that that is
truth in the inward parts. Now you might say it. You know,
somebody might say, I'm sorry, no count, this, that, and the
other, but a lot of times men say stuff like that don't really
mean it. Now, David really meant it. He understood that that was
exactly where he was at. Behold, thou desirest truth in
the inward parts, and in the hidden part thou shalt make me
to know wisdom. Now, that's exactly what the
Lord said to the woman at the well, wasn't it? He said, The
Father seeketh such that worship him as worship him in spirit
and truth. Thou desirest truth in the inward
parts. There's no faking when you come
before the Lord. What would be the point? But
I mean, men go through the motions of religion religiously, thinking,
well, you know, it's time to go to church. We're going to
go to church this week. Well, we went to church. Why'd
you go to church? Well, you ought to go to church. That's a poor reason to go, I'm
telling you that. What do you want? To gather together
with God's people and worship Him just out of heaven? Or is it because you delight
in it? Because it's the thing that you long to do? It's a wonderful
thing. How pleasant it is for brethren
to dwell together in unity. How sweet it is when God is pleased
to meet in the midst of the people. A glorious thing. In the hidden
part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. You see, God's people
are taught the truth of God. The Lord said that the Spirit
of God would lead us into what? All truth. He would lead us into
all truth. David said that's exactly what
it is. Make me to know wisdom in my
inward parts. Teach me. Lead me, O Lord. And listen to what he says, purge
me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Now hyssop is like a purgative,
it's like a laxative. He said cleanse me, get this
stuff out of me. Purge me with hyssop and I shall
be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter
than snow because in your hands, oh Lord, you can make me clean. Now David understands one thing. that he that entereth into the
presence of the Lord must do so with clean hands and a pure
heart. He said that, didn't he, in one
of the Psalms. Clean hands and a pure heart.
And here he is coming before the Lord with anything but. He
had dirty hands and a dirty heart. He said, Lord, I'm done for.
There's nothing I can do. I'm here. And if you judge me
to be worthy of destruction, I'll have to praise you for it.
Job said, though He slay me, yet will I trust Him if He kills me. I mean, he's
right. He's worthy to be praised. But
cleanse me, 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. The Lord broke David's bones,
didn't he? He crushed him. That's what the Lord said. He
said, whoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken. But he said, on whomsoever this
stone shall fall, it shall grind him to powder. The Lord caused
David to be cast upon that stone. And he was broken. Broken in
heart, broken in mind, broken in spirit. He didn't have anything to offer. Had nothing positive he could
say. If you'll give me another chance,
I'll do better. No, he knew he wouldn't do better.
How foolish is that? Have you ever made a deal with
God like that? Lord, if you'll get me out of this, I won't do
this again. You know you've said that. Every man in here, every woman
in here has said that from time to time. But dear brethren, that's
just old flesh working. You can't make a deal with God.
There are no deals to be made. Only as a man is brought to the
place where David was. Make me to hear joy and gladness,
O Lord. Cause me to be able to rejoice. Now a lot of people think that
you can just rejoice. But you can't rejoice if the
Lord doesn't give you a spirit of rejoicing. I mean, if the
Lord takes joy away from you, how are you going to get it back?
You can't just stir something up. You know, it's very common and
very prevalent today for all these various places to get folks
worked up into what they call joy. And I'm not saying everybody
that gets worked up into something like that is necessarily not
worshiping the Lord. I don't know what they're doing.
But I know there's plenty of folks that just get stirred up.
That's not the joy of the Lord. David is brought to a place to
rejoice in the Lord. And he wasn't jumping around.
He wasn't stirred up in his flesh. Create in me a clean heart. Or
he says, hide thy face from my sins and blot out my iniquities.
I hate for you to even look on these things. The Lord said that
he wouldn't look on our sins. And when he looked on David,
he didn't see David's sin. What did he see? He saw the righteousness
of Christ. The Lord wasn't looking at David
and waiting, saying, well, I'm going to let him back in. See,
that's how people look sometimes. It's like, well, the Lord turned
him out, but he's saying, well, if he'll, you know, get right,
I'll bring him back in. No. You see, the Lord looked
upon David with favor from the beginning. But David was not
given the ability to look with favor upon God until the Lord
in His mercy dealt with him and showed him once again what he
was by nature. And he was brought back to that
place because he was brought back to the place where he remembers.
You see, this is the same one that said, I was glad when they
said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. He said,
Lord, bring me back to that place. Lord, let me once again rejoice
in Thy presence, because right now, Lord, the only thing I can
do is be cast down before You. Create in me a clean heart, O
God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from
Thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore
unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit. Oh, is that not the desire of
the sons of God? Create in me a clean heart, O
God. O Lord, let me have a clean slate
before thee in mine own eyes. that I might not behold my iniquity,
but that I might behold the righteousness of Christ. See, we're not called
upon to wallow in the sadness of our sin. Now, you can't help
but be saddened by your sin, but you are not called upon to
wallow in self-pity. What did Paul say? Reckon ye
yourselves dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus
Christ. See, that's the work of grace,
the mercy of God, to bring us, knowing that we're sinners, but
yet restoring unto us the joy of His salvation that we might
rejoice in Him, not just be cast down. Paul said he was cast down,
but he was not destroyed. He was persecuted, but He was
not forsaken. See, in the midst of the trouble,
Lord work in us. Create in me a clean heart. Renew
a right spirit within me. Oh, that I might rejoice in Thee.
That I might come to the table of the Lord and not be considering
how many sins I've committed during the week. That's not the
purpose of coming here. We're all sinners. That's the
reason the Lord gave us this remembrance. He didn't say, Remember your
sin. He said, Remember my death. See,
He'll teach you about your sin. The Spirit of God will convince
you of sin, righteousness, and judgment. He'll do that. He didn't
call me to convince you of that because I can't do it if I wanted
to. But He did call me to preach
to you the glories of redemption that are found in Jesus Christ,
the cleansing of sin in the blood of the living God, the blood
of Christ, our atonement. that one who has taken away our
sin has removed it from us as far as the East is from the West.
That's why we come here today. This is not a remembrance of
sin, it's a remembrance of Christ. Now we come here with a measure
of sadness as we consider that it was our sin that brought this
to pass, but he said, remember my death till I come, because
he said, I died, but he said, that's not the end. That's just
the beginning. He said, because I have something
for you and I want you to be reminded of that. He says, I
didn't die hoping to do something. I didn't die knowing that a bunch
of what I did wouldn't do any good. The Lord shall see of the
travail of his soul and be satisfied. He said, I came to purchase those
whom I love with an everlasting love. And he said, this is what
I want you to remember. And the sons of God will rejoice
in that which Christ has done. Because brethren, we have no
other place wherein we can find any sort of help or deliverance
but here. May the Lord bring us to that
place.