our Bibles today to Psalm 51. 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. 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 didst desire
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
and design, build thou the walls of Jerusalem. Then shalt thou
be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt
offering and whole burnt offering. Then shall they offer bullocks
upon thine altar. I'm going to try to limit my
message today to one petition in this psalm. And that's not
going to be easy because While this verse that I'm going to
speak to us from, this one petition, is like all of the psalm. It
all speaks of David's repentance. The one that I want to speak
to us from is verse seven. This one petition, purge me with
hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter
than snow. I have four statements. I have
four statements that I want to make about this petition, and
we will look at each one of them. First, this petition is of a
child of God. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall
be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter
than snow. This is a petition of a child
of God. No one questions that David was
the author of this psalm. At the same time, no one questions
that David was a child of God. Consider these things that we
are told in the scriptures about David. The prophet Samuel said
this about David. The Lord has sought him a man,
that is David, a man after his own heart. There's no one else
in scripture that that is spoken of other than David, a man after
God's own heart. The prophet Nathan, speaking
unto David, told him this, these words of God, I took thee from
the sheep coat. That is, God took David. And
what we read here that God did to David or for David, he does
for all of his people. Every one of us here this morning,
I don't know where we were, but I know who took us. If we've
been taken, if we've been called, if we've been separated from
the world, that is the world, the great majority of people
at this time in this world who are in the broad way, on the
way to destruction, I know who it is who took us. who separated us, and that's
God. We know this morning that salvation
is of the Lord. And we know that's true from
the Word of God, and we know it's true from our own experiences,
if we know Christ today. But David, Nathan told David
these words, and these were the words of the Lord to David, I
took thee. from the sheep coat, that is,
from the redeal, the place where the sheep were tended. I took
thee from the sheep coat, from following the sheep, to be ruler
over my people, over Israel. And we know this about David
also. God promised to David that he
would have a son. He would have a son who would
sit upon his throne and rule over his kingdom forever. And we know this about David.
What I'm saying is, this petition purged me with hyssop, and I
shall be clean, washed me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
This is the petition of a child of God. There's no question about
that. The Holy Spirit inspired David
to write Not all of the Psalms, but most all of the Psalms. A
great portion. You take the book of Psalms and
compare it with the whole Word of God, and a great portion of
the Word of God was written, the human author at least, was
David, the sweet Psalmist of Israel. And David served as a type of
the Savior in many ways. In fact, God referred to Christ
in many places by the name David. In other places of scripture,
God uses the word David. But it is referring to Christ,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me show you one of these
places. Look over in Isaiah chapter 55. In Isaiah chapter 55. And verse number three, incline
your ear and come unto me. Here and your soul shall live,
and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure
mercies of David, the sure mercies of the Lord Jesus Christ. That
is, all the blessings of the everlasting covenant Here they
are referred to as the sure mercies, such as the forgiveness of sins,
eternal life, reconciliation, adoption into the family of God. They all come to us sinners through
David, that is, Jesus Christ our Lord. That's the reason Bartimaeus,
the blind Bartimaeus, Remember in the Gospels when he heard
that Jesus was passing by, he called out to him, Jesus, thou
son of David. Jesus, thou son of David, have
mercy upon me. So that's the first statement.
This is a petition of a child of God. Purge me with hyssop
and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter
than snow. My second statement is this.
This is a petition of a fallen child of God. Purge me with hyssop,
and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter
than snow. David had fallen into sin, and
he acknowledged this in this verse by his use of the word
purge me with hyssop." Now, I want you to think with me as we think
about this. David, as all of God's children,
loved the Word of God. Now that's just a mark of God's
children. Everyone who's been saved by
the grace of God, regenerated by the Spirit of God, and come
to faith in Jesus Christ is given a love for the Word of God. We desire the sincere milk of
the Word, just like a newborn babe desires the milk of its
mother. Even so, when a person is born
again of the Spirit of God, we have a desire for the Word of
God. And we love the Word of God.
David, as a child of God, he loved God's Word. Look over in Psalm 119. Now he
wrote this psalm, and it's all about the Word of God. But I
want you to notice how many times in this psalm that he mentions
the fact that he loved God's Word. A believer is not ashamed to
confess that we love the Word of God. We're not ashamed to
come to a place where the Word of God is proclaimed. In fact,
that's the place we want to come to, a place where the Word of
God, not just the philosophies and the thoughts and the sciences
of this world, but where the Word of God is proclaimed. I was talking to a brother before
the service this morning about the fact that man's word needs
to be changed. It needs to be altered, no matter
how good it may be, and we were talking about the Constitution
of the United States of America. A wonderful document, but how
many times has it needed to be amended? And that's true of every
document, every word that man writes, but the Word of God,
it is settled forever in heaven. Why? Because it is like its author. Changes not. Changes not. David in this psalm confesses
several times. Let's look first in verse 119.
In verse 119, here in Psalm 119. Thou puttest away all the wicked
of the earth like dross. Therefore, I love thy testimonies. I love thy testimonies. Verse
127. Therefore, I love thy commandments
above gold, yea, above fine gold. Think of this, when David here
says, I love thy word, thy commandments above gold. If you had a building
full of gold, if this old building was full of gold, you would be
considered a very wealthy man. But if you had all this gold
and did not have the word of God, You wouldn't know the first
thing about God. You would know there is a God.
Creation would tell you that. But how is He revealed unto us
apart from the written Word of God? David said, I love thy testimonies,
thy commandments above gold, yea, above fine gold. Look also
in verse 159. Consider how I love thy precepts. Quicken me, O Lord, according
to thy lovingkindness. 163. I hate and abhor lying, but thy
law do I love. And one other, verse 167, My
soul hath kept thy testimonies, and I love them exceedingly. Now, I've pointed this out to
us because David, a child of God, he loved God's Word, he's
the king of Israel. Now, you may not have heard this,
you may have heard it and have forgotten it, But this was one
of the requirements for a king of Israel. God gave this to Moses
in the book of Deuteronomy. And God told Israel through Moses
that when they had a king, this is one thing the king must do. This is only one thing I'm going
to mention. There were several things. But
this was one thing that every king of Israel must do. You know
what the first was? He had to copy his own copy of
the law. He had to sit down and write
and copy the law of God. This is found in Deuteronomy
17 verses 18 and 19. He shall write him a copy of
this law. Now there was a copy we know
laid up next to the Ark of the Covenant, that's what God commanded,
but the king When he came to the throne, he was to write his
own copy of the law of God, and not only write the copy, but
he shall read therein all the days of his life. Now, I don't
know how many kings of Israel obeyed that, but I'm certain
that this king did. I'm certain that David did this
very thing. Why? Because he loved God's word. And God's word told him, as the
king of Israel, make a copy of the word and read therein all
the days of thy life. Now, as David would read the
word of God, not just through once, remember we're talking
about Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, the
law of God, as he would read through them, he would come to
the word hyssop three times. He would come to the word hyssop
three times. First, he would come to the word
hyssop in Exodus chapter 12. You don't need to turn there,
but you can if you would like. And this has reference, of course,
to the blood of the Passover lamb. Hyssop and the blood of
the Passover. Remember the Passover lamb was
to be slain And the head of the house was to take that blood
in a basin, take it to his house. And it was with hyssop he was
to strike the blood upon the lentil and upon the two side
posts of the door. And remember this, death, death,
death entered into every house where God did not see the blood. into every house where the blood
was not sprinkled with hyssop upon the lentil and upon the
two doorposts." David knew. I said this is a petition of
a child of God. This is a petition of a fallen
child of God. David knew in the law that his
sin of adultery and murder, there was no forgiveness. There was
no forgiveness in the law. It merited death. That was punishable
by death. And David, when he says, purge
me with hyssop, no doubt he remembers that his sin was worthy of death. And death would enter and come
where there was not blood applied by hyssop. He's confessing. He's worthy. What he's done,
his sin, he's guilty. He's worthy. He's worthy of death. Now every sin, let me just say
this, every sin is worthy of death. We think of adultery, that's
a wicked sin. Murder, that's an awful sin.
Yes, absolutely. But the truth of the matter is
a little white lie. is worthy of death. Every sin
is committed against God, and God is infinite. And that makes
every sin infinite. There's only one cure for sin,
and that's the blood of the Passover lamb. Doesn't matter what sin
it is. Now the next time he would come
to the word hyssop would be, and as the word has been divided
into chapters and verses, would have been in Leviticus chapter
14. And this concerned the cleansing
of a leper. Hyssop and the cleansing of a
leper. A leper, we know, that was a
peculiar disease. I'm not so sure it is a disease
that we don't even know about today. I know there's a disease
today called leprosy, and it's an awful disease, but I'm not
sure that's the leprosy of the scripture. but it was a type
of sin. And when a man or a woman or
child, when they realized there was a spot on their body somewhere
of leprosy, the first thing they had to do when they went to the
priest and he examined them and the priest said, yes, that's
leprosy, outside the camp, outside the camp. David recognized that
his sin merited being put outside the camp. He knew that. But we know that God provided
when the leper who had been put out of the camp, if he were healed,
then he wouldn't come back into the camp. I started to say he'd
come back. No, the priest would go out to him. Once the leper
was put out of the camp, he was put out of the camp until the
leper came outside, or until the priest, rather, came outside
and looked at that leprosy and said, yes, it's clean. In other
words, it's healed, and then he has to be cleansed. And we
know there was two birds, remember, in the ceremony of cleansing.
One bird was killed over water. And then with a cedar wood and
hyssop tied onto that cedar wood with scarlet thread, the priest
would put that down, that hyssop down in that bowl of blood and
water and sprinkle the leper. And then the live bird was put
down into that same bowl and it flew away. And that was a
picture, of course, of the atoning work of Jesus Christ our Lord
and His resurrection. David knew that. Purge me with
hyssop. And the third time that David
would come to the word hyssop was in relation to the ashes
of a red heifer. The ashes of a red heifer. This
was also part of the law. Those ashes were kept in a clean
place, remember. And if a man touched a dead body,
and you know, people die, don't they? People die. I mean, those
Israelites, they had people dying for 40 years. They were there
in the wilderness. And when a person died, that
person had to be buried. That body had to be buried. Well,
someone had to touch it. And when you touched it, you
were unclean. You were unclean. And no more
could come into the congregation and worship God. But thank God
there was a remedy, wasn't there? There were the ashes of the red
heifer that were kept. And the priest would mix those
with water and sprinkle the man that was unclaimed. Now, for
his cleansing. In the ceremony of both the cleansing
of the leper and I believe with the red heifer, there was also
the washing of the body. And David here mentions that
as well when he says, purge me with hyssop, wash me, wash me,
and I shall be whiter than snow. My third statement is this. This
is the petition of a repentant child of God. I said, first of
all, it is a petition of a child of God, second of a fallen child
of God, but third of a repentant child of God. You know, the primary
definition for the word repentance is change of mind. But we know
that included with the change of mind is also sorrow. Sorrow for the offense. In 2
Corinthians chapter 7, the Apostle Paul, writing to the believers
in the church there about repentance, he said, you were made sorry
after a godly manner. You were made sorry after a godly
manner. And what was it that had made
them sorry? It was Paul's letter. Paul's
letter, the first letter of Corinthians. And let me say this, it was Nathan's
word to David that had made him sorry. Nathan, you remember he came,
he was sent of God, and he came to David and said, thou art the
man. He gave him that parable. of
the wealthy man who had a number of sheep, and a visitor came
to his house, and rather than take one of his sheep and sacrifice
it to feed the visitor, here's this neighbor who only has one
sheep, who had been so special to him, just like a member of
his family, and this wealthy man takes the sheep of that man
and sacrifices it to feed his His visitor. And David, he was
so indignant, wasn't he? My, he was indignant. Oh, he didn't realize the parable. But just as soon as Nathan said,
you are the man. I don't know if he stuck his
finger out like that. Probably not. You know, all David
had to do is say, execute him. No one's going to talk to me
like that. But David was a child of God. And when the word of God came,
yes, it made him sorry. He said, thou art the man, and
God said, or the prophet said to David, the Lord hath put away
thy sin. True repentance. I said repentance
means a change of mind, but there's always sorrow that goes with
true repentance. And true repentance always has
an element of hope. Always. It always has an element
of hope. True repentance. False repentance,
Judas Iscariot, he had false repentance. The scripture says
that he repented and then what did he do? He went out and hanged
himself. He had no hope. True repentance
always has an element of hope. This is a petition of a child
of God, of a fallen child of God, but also of a repentant
child of God. Wash me in the fountain, wash
me in the fountain of the blood of the Redeemer, and I shall
be whiter than snow. He had hope. He had hope because
he knew the Lord Jesus Christ would come into this world and
give himself a ransom for many. When David said here, wash me
and I shall be whiter than snow, is anything whiter than snow?
Yes. Every center washed in the blood
of Jesus Christ is whiter than snow. How white is that? Well, I'll tell you how white
it is according to Jude verse 24. Unto him that is able to
keep you from falling and to present you faultless before
the presence of his glory. Now, to wash you and present
you faultless, that would say a lot, but to wash you and present
you faultless before His glory, His glory, God's glory. In other words, to be washed
and present you without any fault before Him, the scripture says
that He even charges His angels with folly. whiter than snow. Wash me and I shall be whiter
than snow. And fourth, this petition is
of a forgiven child of God, a forgiven child of God. When Nathan, I've
already said this, but just as soon as Nathan confronted him,
that is David, without the man, David confessed, I have sinned
against the Lord. I have sinned against the Lord.
And Nathan, I mean, there's not even a comma, I don't think.
Nathan, he said, the Lord also hath put away thy sin. Just as
soon as he confessed. The Lord also hath put away thy
sin. In Psalm 132 and verse 5, David
said, I acknowledged my sin unto thee. One of the most difficult
things for any fallen son of Adam to do is to acknowledge
our transgressions. I mean, just to say, I'm guilty. I'm guilty. It's so difficult,
isn't it? We all want to say, I'm guilty,
but... I'm guilty, but, you know, someone
made me do it. Someone said something. I'm guilty. I acknowledge my transgressions
unto thee. I'm guilty. I don't have an excuse,
no extenuating circumstances involved in this. I'm guilty. I acknowledge my transgressions
unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will
confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest
me, or forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Now in the New Testament. In the New Testament, the Apostle
John tells us in 1 John, This wonderful promise for all of
God's children. Now, you followed with me. This is petition of a child of
God, of a fallen child of God, of a repentant child of God,
of a forgiven child of God. If we confess our sins, he is
faithful. He is faithful and just. When it says he's faithful and
just, it means that he doesn't just excuse the believer's sins. It's still, when a lost person
sins, it's sin. When a saved person sins, it's
sin. He doesn't excuse our sins. And the iniquities of a saved
person are still iniquities. And they must be forgiven. And
thank God we have this wonderful promise, this declaration. If
we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now I've given you four statements. Now I want to close with four
practical lessons. Four practical lessons for all
of us. Number one, how needful for us
to heed our Lord's admonition, watch and pray. Watch and pray
that you enter not into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the
flesh is weak. And we consider a man like David,
a man after God's own heart, a man that God used to write
so much of the word of God. If we consider a man like him
who fell into sin, how much do we need to heed our Lord's admonition? Watch and pray that you enter
not into temptation. If the Lord doesn't hold us up,
we will fall. We never come to the place in
this world where we may think that, well, I don't need God's
help, I don't need God's grace, I've been a Christian now for
a number of years and I'm just never, no, that's never going
to happen. Even when a person, and I had
an older gentleman tell me this one time, When a man gets to
the age he's not able to do some of the things he could do when
he was young, physically he's no longer able, but he still
has the thoughts in his mind. The Lord must keep us. Watch the spirit, that is that
no man is willing, but the flesh is weak. It is in all of us. Number two, the second lesson,
we should never forget the truth that David found forgiveness. In fact, in Psalm 130, verse
four, he said, there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be
feared. God forgives his children. When we confess our sins, when
we acknowledge our transgressions, when we pray as he did, wash
me, purge me with hyssop. wash me and I shall be whiter
than snow. There is forgiveness with the
Lord. And what it results in is reverence,
more reverence of God that thou mayest or mightest be feared. And third, let us be thankful that we have
an advocate with the Father. First John chapter two. John
said, these things, little children, these things write unto thee
that you sin not. And that's our objective, right?
That's our goal, that you sin not. But if any man sin, we have
an advocate with the Father. And He's always there. He's always
there as our advocate. And He always has His wounds
that plead for His children. And number four, Let us always
be ready to forgive and receive a believer who has fallen and
repented. Let's always be ready to receive. Because you know some people
when they see a believer, brother, sister fall into sin and it becomes
public or whatever, They just don't welcome that person with
open arms like we should. But I'm so thankful that the
Lord is merciful to forgive us our sins, aren't you? And we
should always be ready and willing to forgive others who have fallen
and have been restored, who have repented. I pray that the Lord
would bless his word to all of us here this morning. We're going
to sing a hymn before we're dismissed, number 51, hymn number 51. And let's stand as we sing. Praise the Savior, ye who know
him, who can tell.