If you'll turn back to Psalm
51, where we previously read, those of you that attend here
regularly know that this is a passage of scripture that's quoted quite
often from this pulpit. Not only by me, but others that
preach, others that have been to visit with us. Against thee Psalm 51 for against
thee and thee only David speaks here speaking of his God Have
I sinned and done this evil in thy sight? That thou mightest
be justified when thou speak and be clear when you judge Sometimes
in the providence of our great God God seems to give us just
a little clearer look at what we actually are. This past week,
God again showed me my sin in a clearer light. In other words,
I got a new whiff of myself and the stench that my sin gives
the sovereign God of the universe. God again showed me by His grace
that in and of myself I am one wretched, sorry, depraved man. It wasn't due to any particular
incident. I just again found myself by
the grace of God and reading the Scripture The revelation
that God has given to the believer's heart saw that if not for the
grace of God, I'm capable of doing anything, thinking anything,
justifying anything in my own mind. Not that I actually thought I
was getting any better. I'm daily aware of my sin, daily
calls to acknowledge that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth
no good thing." And I'm conscious daily, as I know you are, of
the war that rages in my members and that I'm unable in myself,
as I said, to do anything that would be pleasing to God and
the merit of salvation. There's none that doeth good,
no, not one. There's none that seeketh after
God. The Scripture says they've all gone their own way. Their own way. But there are
times, my dear friends, in this journey of life that God shows
us that our sin is really and truly against Him and Him only. What an atrocious and horrible
thing to sin against the very one who loved me and gave himself
for me. What a despicable thought to
think that I rebel against the very one that did for me what
I could not do for myself. The one who loves me most, I
often spit in his face. I'm speaking of me. I dare not
speak for you, but I just have a feeling that as a child of
God, you feel the same way about yourself. You see, God shows
us our sin. He shows us our inability to
do anything good, anything righteous to merit His salvation. And He
brings us in the dust of despair and causes us to call on Christ
as our all and I believe that God sometimes
shows us a little more clearly in divine revelation that all
our sin is really against Him and Him only. And here, the psalmist
David confesses the truth about his sin and ours. It's against
God and God only. He said that I've sinned and
done this evil in thy sight. Now David felt like one who was
shut out from God. One who was unworthy to approach
Him. And he was right about the unworthy
part. He could not be content though
to remain in such a condition. He longed to be reconciled to
God. And it becomes apparent in the
rest of the reading of this chapter. These words came from David's
heart and they came at a very difficult time. Oftentimes, our
most sweet fellowship with God is during difficult times. Is
that not right? Because we come to the end of
ourselves and we must cling upon the only one that can truly help
us. We see afresh again that we can't help ourselves. We come
to our senses, so to speak, and we call upon God, who's the only
one that can truly give us relief, can truly give us help in time
of need. Now, this psalm was written when
Nathan the prophet came and told David how displeased God was
with him. I don't know if your Bible has
a little caption right below the chapter name and number,
but mine says, to the chief musician, a psalm of David, when Nathan
the prophet came unto him after he had gone in to Bathsheba. You see here, David had taken
another man's wife. He had murdered him on the front
line of war. Now, there are no little sins
and big sins. All sin is against God. But this was no light matter.
Why? Adultery, fornication, murder
all wrapped up in the lust of this chosen child of God's decision. David was not only God's chosen
king, dear friends, he was one of God's chosen people. And we've
said this before, aren't you glad that God doesn't hide the
sins of His most beloved in the Scriptures? Because He shows
each and every one from the pages of Scripture what we are as men
and women capable of doing. God doesn't hide the faults of
even His chosen people in the Bible. And here we see a sincere sorrow
when the believer sees his horrific sin. And the reason is God's
Spirit dwells within the child of God. There was a time when I carried
on daily in sin and never gave it a second thought. Thank God
now by His grace that His Spirit convicts me, convinces me of
my sin, and shows me what I'm capable of. without His restraining
grace. Look at verse 1 of Psalm 51. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness,
according unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies. Blot out
my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin, for I acknowledge my transgressions
and my sin as ever before me. The child of God will cry for
mercy. You see, when God saves, they'll
cry for mercy when God saves them, they'll cry for mercy after
God saves them. That's right. Have mercy upon
me, O God. Do you know why they cry out
to God for mercy? Because their sin is against
Him and Him only. Oh, friends, if you do something
that you think might offend me, don't cry for mercy unto me.
Cry for mercy unto God, and may I do the same. You see, children
of the living God appeal unto God upon nothing deserving or
lovely in themselves. Do you know what they appeal
to Him on? His loving kindness. Oh, we as men, we forgive, but
we don't forget. Not God. Not God. We beg for mercy according
to God's multitudes of tender mercy. What's the basis for crying? It's God's loving kindness. It's God's multitude of tender
mercies. Believers hate their sin. They despise and loathe it. And
they always want to be delivered from it. And you know what their
cry is? It's a simple prayer. Most always found in the Scripture.
Blot out my transgressions. They're against you and you only
God. Blot them out. Because of your loving kindness,
your tender mercies. And this is why in verse This
is a personal thing too, friends. Never forget that. In most cases, our prayer and
concern should be for the good of others. That's what this book
teaches. But when it comes to this thing of sin, you better
be concerned for yourself. It's a personal thing. You see,
I must have Christ. For you to have Christ and me
to be without Him does me no profit. And that's why David
here in verse 2 says, wash me. Wash me throughly. It wasn't that he didn't desire
for God to save those that he loved, but his sin was against
God and God only. And he said, wash me. thoroughly
for what? Mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. You'll never ask God, now listen,
you'll never ask God to wash you unless God reveals to you
your sin as He did David. That's right. And you know how
God did that? He used a prophet. He used a
preacher. Name Nathan to reveal his great
sin to him. And you know what? This can't
amaze you any more than it does me, but God still uses preachers
and the preaching of the gospel to show men their sin against
God. Nothing special about those that
stand and preach. We don't have special grace in
the sense of salvation. We're sinners like all men are. And we're in need of grace and
mercy to help us in time of need. But nevertheless, God has chosen
the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe. And
that's what God did here. He sent David a prophet. You
sometimes In your spare time, you look up at that little story
where Nathan came to David and talked to him about a man who
had a pet lamb and his neighbor had many. This man had taken
this lamb and raised him as a child. Some of you have pets that you
love. I've seen you act crazy over them, I know. And it was
no different with this man. And his neighbor had all kinds,
and yet that neighbor took his pet lamb and murdered it, slain
it, slayed it, and ate it. And David said, where is he?
I'll kill him. Where is this man to do such a horrific thing?
I'll kill him right now. And Nathan said, that man's you.
You are that man. Friends, that's what the gospel
does, and that's what preachers do in the preaching of the gospel.
They say to every sinner, themselves included, you are that man. You are that man. God calls you to take sides with
Him against yourself. That's why in verse 3, David
says, I acknowledge my transgressions. I acknowledge them. My sin is
ever before me." It had to be revealed to him now before he
could acknowledge it. Isn't that right? Can you acknowledge
something that hadn't been made known to you? Believers will be brought down
in the dust and they'll confess this truth, I've sinned against
thee and thee only. I've done this evil in your sight."
That's right. And you see, God is a God of
justice, and He brings His people to this conclusion, for He will
be justified when He speaks, David says, verse 4. And He'll
be clear when He judges. He won't judge unfairly. I can assure you that. We in and of ourselves, as I
have said, can never ever please God. We can't keep His law perfectly. Who are we kidding? We cannot
love God as we ought because our sin is ever before us. And God is just, and He always
will be, and He'll always honor His justice concerning the redemption
of His people. The guilty cannot be pardoned,
because God's justice is strict justice. Exodus. Let me read this one verse to
you. 34 verse 7 keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity
and transgression and sin and thank God he does but it's in
Christ and Christ alone For it goes on to say and that will
he will by no means Clear the guilty And He'll visit the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children,
and to the third and to the fourth generations, those that are guilty. Are you guilty before God, dear
friends? If you're in Christ, you're not. That's the gospel. God Almighty forgives sin. Only one way that He will, and
that's in His precious, perfect, sinless Son. He does this for
His own namesake. Psalm 25, David wrote, For thy
namesake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity, for it's great. and every child of God will be
caused to bow before the sovereign God of heaven and earth and say,
for Thy name's sake, for Your own honor and Your own glory
and for Your own name's sake, pardon my iniquity. It's great,
Lord. It's great. You want to see something
of how great our Savior is? You look at how great your sin
is, and this must be our plea. You're guilty. You'll always
be guilty unless God makes you perfect, totally righteous and
sinless. And only one way to do that,
in the substitution of the Lord Jesus Christ. As I said, Him
doing for me what I can never do for myself. He was made to be sin for us. I'm convinced that we can't enter
into that like we ought to, like we should. Made to be sin. God made him sin. You know why? To make me righteous, to make me
perfect, sinless, holy in the eyes of God Almighty. Look at verse five. And you'll
see that we were shaped in iniquity. And in sin did my mother conceive
me. Now, you know, I think I'll just
read past that so quick sometime. We were conceived in sin. Before
we were ever an embryo, the smallest little thing in our mother's
womb, we were sin. Conceived in sin, the Scripture
says. Nothing but sin. Sin, we were
in our conception. Psalm 58-3 says, the wicked are
estranged from the womb. They go astray as soon as they're
born, speaking lies. You know why? They're sinners.
We're conceived in sin, born in sin. We live in sin, and friends,
unless God intervenes, Unless God intervenes in sovereign grace
and mercy in the Lord Jesus Christ, we're going to die in our sin.
But God is rich in mercy. That's your only hope. That's
my only hope. And we'll not only die physically,
but we'll die spiritually and eternally if we don't have Christ. Do you know why that's my message? Because that's the only message
there is. I'm not going to try to tell people
how to live when I can't live right myself. That's not the
issue. The issue is, what do you think
of Christ? Whose son is He? Does He mean
anything to you? If you're one of God's, He does.
Verse 6, Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts, and
in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. You see,
it's with delight and pleasure that this is what is agreeable
to the nature of God. This is what is required by His
holy law. This is what is wrought in the
hearts of His people in saving grace. You know what it is? Truth. Truth. real, not imaginary, genuine
truth. And unfortunately, not all that's
heard today from the pulpits of churches is the truth. It's a true sense of sin. It's
a right side of Christ. It's unwavering faith in Him,
sincere love to Him, hope in Him. Believers are shut up to
one thing and one thing only unless you have Christ you shall
die in your sin This is what God gives the saved
sinner It's what he gave you sandy when you trusted in him
you came to him And he did it in your inward
parts and Christ and the truth in Him is
what God takes great delight and pleasure. It's the only thing
in which God takes great delight and pleasure. Now in the next
few verses, and I'll try to be brief, we have the true prayer
of a true believer. We've been made by the grace
of God to pray this way, to think this way, to live this way. Pay close attention with me,
if you would, to these next few verses, and I'll just comment
briefly on each. This is the prayer of David,
and this is the prayer of every true child of God, whom God has
shown their iniquity, their sin, and their need of Christ to be
saved. Verse 7, Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter
than snow." David is simply saying here, atone me. Make me at one
with you. Make me at one with you. Reconcile
me. Take me as a son. And listen,
he said, if you purge me, I shall be clean. This is a sovereign
God we're dealing with. He's never tried or wanted to
do anything. Well, you say that every Sunday. I hear about a God most every
day of my life that's trying to do something, and you've got
to let him. That ain't God. David says, you
purge me and I'll be clean. You wash me and I'll be whiter
than snow. I won't only be clean, I'll be
perfectly clean. Make me at one with you. Oh,
the assurance and confidence that we find in God's salvation. The blood of Christ cleanses
us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1 verse 7. All unrighteous. Verse 8. Make me to hear joy
and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Oh, that this might be my constant
prayer. Make me to hear joy and gladness. Friends, we'll never hear true
joy and gladness unless God makes us to hear the preaching of this
gospel. It is joy and gladness. We will
not willfully hear, for we don't have the ability, we don't have
the will to do so. God has to make us willing in
the day of His power if we're ever able to hear. God's got
to give us the ears to hear. God does. It's God. Salvation
is of the Lord. That's not just a little saying
that we stick out on a sign somewhere. That's the truth of Scripture.
Salvation is of the Lord. Period. As Gary said this morning. God has to make us alive because
we're dead in trespasses and sin. We're spiritually deaf,
dumb, blind, dead. And you hath he quickened who
were dead in trespasses and sins." Ephesians 2.1. God's Word says
that, friends. I didn't say it. It's what God
says. When God chastens His children,
it's like having a bone out of joint. Have you ever had a bone
popped out of joint? I know some of you have. Some
of you are going through some pain like that right now. But
sometimes the fall is so great of ours before God Almighty that
it hurts like a broken bone. It's like a broken bone. And
when God brings us back into fellowship, our broken bones
are healed. And that's why David said in
verse 8, Make me to hear joy and gladness at the bones which
thou hast broken may rejoice. Verse 9, hide thy face from my
sins and blot out all mine iniquities. You see, it was in God's sight
and against God only that our sins were committed. So David
says, hide your face from my sins. Blot out all mine iniquities. You see, he was ashamed of his
sins and himself. He was ashamed that others could
see them. Do you think that this thing
went unnoticed? Why he's out on the balcony one night of his
palace, sees this beautiful young woman, he goes and he takes her
into himself. Why her husband is one of his
best friends. And because of his own lust,
he took that man and put him down on the front lines of war,
and he was murdered, and he took this woman to be his own wife. Do you think others didn't see
this? And when Nathan the prophet came to him and said, He was
ashamed. He said, I killed that man. That
man's a Jew. He was ashamed, dear friends,
and he wasn't the only one to see it. Others saw it. But the
most important thing is that God saw it. And it was against
God and God only that he sinned and done this evil. Every true child of God's desire
and prayer is, Lord, blot out my transgressions, blot out my
iniquities. Verse 10, creating me a clean
heart. Renew a right spirit within me. Now there's one thing that I've
learned, I believe I've learned, I hope I've learned, let me put
it that way. is that the more and more and
more I see of the impurity of my own heart and the evil actions
that it's capable of that flow from it, I pray that God would
give me a clean heart. Is that not so with you? I pray
that God would renew a right spirit I don't see anything but
a wrong spirit in me that is in my flesh. Paul said, O wretched
man I am. The man that wrote two-thirds
of the New Testament called himself a wretched man. Brother, you
just harp way too much on that sin thing. I can't harp enough
on it. Sin is what you are. It's not what you do, it's what
you are. That's what I am. Create in me a clean heart. Renew
a right spirit within me. Verse 11, cast me not away from
thy presence. And take not thy Holy Spirit
from me. There is absolutely nothing more
desirable to a child of God than the presence of God. And nothing
gives more pain to a child of God than his absence. The believer's prayer is, Lord,
never leave me. Knowing all the while that he
said, I'll never leave you or forsake you. It's still our prayer,
though, isn't it? I know God said He'll never leave
me nor forsake me, but that ain't going to keep me from praying,
Lord, don't ever leave me. Oh, no. Lord, don't take the Holy Spirit
you freely gave me away from me. If you do, even though I
deserve that you should, I'm going to die. We sing that song,
Pass Me Not, O gentle Savior. Don't pass me by. While on others
Thou art calling and mercy and grace, don't pass me by. Verse 12, Restore unto me Oh,
do you hear this prayer? Create in me, cast me not away,
restore unto me, blot out my transgressions. Restore unto
me the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with Thy free spirit. Now, if we're a child of God,
we cannot lose our salvation. You've heard me use that illustration
of Brother Henry Mahan's many times. You know, it's a big thing
among Baptists. Once saved, always saved. Brother
Henry, you believe once saved, always saved? I'll never forget
his answer. Depends on who saved you. If God saved you, then you can't
lose it. And we can't, dear friends. No
man can pluck them from my hand. That's what Christ said. Now,
do we believe Him or not? And that means you can't jump
out either if you're truly one of His. But I tell you what,
you can lose the joy of your salvation. You can. And I have. I have many times. We all have, I believe at some
time, lost the joy of our salvation. But God always hears the cries
of His people and He grants them all things spiritual in the Lord
Jesus Christ. You know what comes to mind immediately?
Peter denied our Lord three times. In the Scriptures, I love Peter. He said what was on his mind.
He loved the Lord. It was obvious in the stories
of him. And one day, the Lord Jesus said,
I'm fixing to go to Jerusalem and the religious people of that
day, they're going to take me and they're going to hang me
on a cross. And Peter said, no they ain't. I ain't going to
let it happen. Is that what he said? Really?
I mean, in so many words? And the Lord Jesus Christ said,
Peter, your spirit's willing, but your
flesh is weak. He said, before the cock crows,
you're going to deny me three times. You know what he did? He denied
him three times. Three times. And then after the Lord Jesus
resurrected, he came to his disciple Peter and said, I'm going fishing.
I've had it with this. And he went fishing. And the
Lord came and he asked Peter three times. He said, Peter,
do you love me? He said, Lord, thou knowest. Thou knowest. I wonder how he
knew the Lord knew. Well, he would have told you
he never would have denied his Lord, and yet he did. He knew
the Lord knew. Thou knowest. You know I love
you. And Christ said, Feed my sheep.
Three different times. Verse 13, Then I will teach transgressors
thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee. Psalm 34
11 says, come you children and hearken unto me, I'll teach you
the fear of the Lord. We got to remember here, friends,
that David was not only King, but he was a prophet. And God
has given to each of us, according to second Corinthians five 18,
the ministry of reconciliation. God's people will endeavor as
long as they live to tell and teach others about Christ. Let me tell you about the wonderful,
amazing, sovereign grace of God in Christ. Like that old woman
at the well, we'll run into town, we'll run to those that we love
and we'll say, come see a man. that told me all things that
I ever did. Is this not the Christ? And that's
what we endeavor to do, dear friends, every week we stand
to tell sinners about their only hope. The same message of salvation
comforts God's people and it saves the lost. No, there's nothing
else worthy of speaking of. Salvation isn't a person. Salvation
is not how much scripture you memorize. It's not even how faithful
you come to church. How faithful did that old thief
on the cross come to church? It's not baptism. He wasn't baptized,
yet the Lord said today, thou shalt be with me in paradise. Salvation has nothing to do with
doing and has everything to do with believing in a person. The man, Christ Jesus, he was
all man and all God. I remember as a little tyke,
I used to think, well, he's half man and half God. No, no, no,
no, no. He was all man and all God. He's the God man. As man, He
lived for me, lived sinlessly for me, never had a bad thought,
never did an evil deed for me, for His chosen, His people. And
then He was judged as a criminal, which I was, even pallid washed his hands
in front of the people and said, I found no fault in him. I'm
washing my hands in this. His blood's upon you. For us. For his people. And he died the death of the most notorious criminal
that ever walked the face of the earth. You know why? Because
you and I were that notorious criminal. This is a gospel of
substitution. Christ doing for me what I can
never do for myself. Bow to that. Come to Christ without
moving a muscle.