Sermon Series: A SUMMER IN THE PSALMS

Psalm 51 GOD'S GIFT OF FORGIVENESS

Have mercy upon me, 0 God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight--that you may be found just when You speak, and blameless when You judge.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part You will 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 hear joy and gladness, that the bones You have broken may rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, 0 God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation; and uphold me by Your generous Spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You.
Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, the God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness.
O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise.
For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it: You do not delight in burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart--these, O God, You will not despise.
Do good in Your good pleasure to Zion; build the walls of Jerusalem.
Then You shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering; then they shall offer bulls on Your altar.

Message:
One of the great preachers of London once said, "The alchemy of divine love can extract sweet perfumes of penitence and praise out of the filth of sin." We have an illustration of this in Psalm 51.
In most of our Bibles, the heading tells us when David wrote this Psalm... written by David after Nathan the prophet had boldly exposed him for committing adultery with Bathsheba and for murdering Uriah. Utterly convicted of his sin, David pours out this torrent of penitence from his broken and contrite heart.

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The story behind this Psalm found in 2 Samuel 11-19.
"It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah.
BUT DAVID REMAINED AT JERUSALEM.
Then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king's house. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to behold.
So David sent and inquired about the woman. And someone said, "Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?"
Then David sent messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her, for she was cleansed from her impurity; and she returned to her house.
And the woman conceived; so she sent and told David, and said, "I am with child."
Then David sent to Joab, saying, "Send me Uriah the Hittite." And Joab sent Uriah to David.
When Uriah had come to him, David asked how Joab was doing, and how the people doing, and how the war prospered.
And David said to Uriah, "Go down to your house and wash your feet." So Uriah departed from the king's house, and a gift of food from the king followed him.
But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house.
So when they told David, saying, "Uriah did not go down to his house," David said to Uriah, "Did you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?"
And Uriah said to David, "The ark and Israel and Judah are dwelling in tents, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are encamped in the open fields. Shall I then go to my house to eat and drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing."
Then David said to Uriah, "Wait here today also, and tomorrow I will let you depart." So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next.
Now when David called him, he ate and drank before him; and he made him drunk. And at evening he went out to lie on his bed with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.
In the morning it happened that David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah.
And he wrote in the letter saying, "Set Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retreat from him, that he may be struck down and die."

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So it was, while Joab besieged the city, that he assigned Uriah to a place where he knew there were valiant men.
Then the men of the city came out and fought with Joab. And some of the people of the servants of David fell; and Uriah the Hittite died also.
Then Joab sent and told David all the things concerning the war, and charged the messenger, saying, "When you have finished telling the matters of the war to the king,
if it happens that the king's wrath rises, and he says to you: "Why did you approach so near to the city when you fought? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall?
"Who struck Abimelech the son of Jerubesheth? Was it not a woman who cast a piece of a millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez? Why did you go near the wall?--then you shall say, "Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also."
So the messenger went, and came and told David all that Joab had sent by him.
And the messenger said to David, "Surely the men prevailed against us and came out to us in the field; then we drove them back as far as the entrance of the gate.
"The archers shot from the wall at your servants: and some of the king's servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also."
Then David said to the messenger, "Thus you shall say to Joab: "Do not let this thing displease you, for the sword devours one as well as another. Strengthen your attack against the city, and overthrow it. So encourage him."
When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband.
And when her mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.

CHAPTER TWELVE
Then the Lord sent Nathan to David. And he came to him and said to him: "There were two men in one city, one rich and the other poor.
The rich man had exceedingly many flocks and herds.
But the poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb which he had bought and nourished; and it grew up together with him and with his children. It ate of his own food and drank from his own cup and lay in his bosom; and it was like a daughter to him.
And a traveler came to the rich man, who refused to take from his own flock and from his own herd to prepare one for his wayfaring man who had come to him; but he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him."

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So David's anger was greatly aroused against the man, and he said to Nathan, "As the Lord lives, the man who had done this shall surely die!
"And he shall restore fourfold for the lamb, because he did this thing and because he had no pity."
Then Nathan said to David, "YOU ARE THE MAN! Thus says the Lord God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul.
"I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your keeping, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little I also would have given you much more!
"Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon.
"Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.
"Thus says the Lord, "Behold, I will raise up adversity against you from your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of the sun.
"For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, before the sun."
So David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." And Nathan said to David, "The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die."
"However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you shall surely die."
Then Nathan departed to his house." (2 Samuel 11-12:15)
IT IS A TRAGIC STORY...A WEALTHY, POWERFUL KING, COMMITS ADULTERY WITH THE WIFE OF HIS TRUSTED AND FAITHFUL WARRIOR, HAS THE MAN KILLED TO COVER UP HIS SIN WHICH HAS NOW RESULTED IN A PREGNANT WOMAN. WHO HE TAKES AS HIS WIFE AFTER THE DEATH OF HER WARRIOR-HUSBAND!
Sounds like modern-day newspaper reports!
One of the most familiar and favored passages of the Old Testament, this Psalm has furnished the language with which contrition has made itself articulate, and given body to sentiments that weigh upon the stricken soul.
It is the great prayer for pardon.
Reaching down, as it does, into the corruption of sin, it lifts the heart up for purification by God's aromatic hyssop. Because it knows something of the blackness of human evil, it can speak with hope and confidence of the whiteness of the divine cleansing.

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Properly called the "Most Sacred Lyric," it can be understood only when those two qualities are kept in mind. "Sacred" is here taken to mean the quality of spiritual experience that has direct reference to man's converse with God: "Lyric" means the quality of sentiment in poetry that as often as not is irrational--meaning, of course, less concerned with logic than with feeling.
The subject and the event are so obvious...King David's relationship with Bathsheba and the prophet Nathan's rebuke...and then David's agonizing prayer seeking God's forgiveness. David’s anger at the cruelty of the fictitious character Nathan had created to point up the nature of the king's own sin was grimly turned back upon the royal sinner.
The hidden scandal was then in the open!
The prophet Nathan had aroused his conscience from its uneasy slumber. Before that, we cannot doubt, remorse had been busy with him. Before that he had felt his misery, had fought against it, but has refused to confess his sin. But the home-thrust, "THOU ART THE MAN", pierced him to the heart, and this Psalm is but the fuller record of the confession, "I HAVE SINNED," which the history mentions so briefly.
So profound a conviction of sin, so deep and unfeigned a penitence, so true a confession, a heart so tender, so contrite, a desire so fervent for renewal, a trust so humble, so filial in the forgiving love of God, are what we find nowhere else in the Old Testament, but what we might surely expect from "the man after God's own heart."
In this Psalm, we see the man...David. Great as had been his sin, it was not the sin of a hardened nature, of the merely selfish sensualist, of the despot to whom all men were but as tools to minister to his pleasures and his crimes. And therefore, when the Prophet comes to him, he turns to God with a real sorrow, and God meets him, as the father in the parable meets his erring son, with a free forgiveness.
HAVE MERCY UPON ME, 0 GOD!
Notice, he appeals at once to the mercy of God even before he mentions his sin. Pardon of sin must ever be an act of pure mercy! The Hebrew word here translated HAVE MERCY signifies "without cause or desert; and freely, without paying any price."
MERCY, LOVINGKINDNESS, TENDER MERCIES. It is interesting to note the gradation in the sense of the three words David uses here, to express the divine compassion, and the propriety of the order in which they are placed. The first, MERCY, denotes that kind of affection which is expressed by moaning over any object that we love and pity. The second word is LOVINGKINDNESS denotes a strong proneness, a liberal disposition to goodness and compassion powerfully prompting to all

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instances of kindness and bounty; flowing as freely and plentifully as waters from a perpetual fountain. The third word that David uses is TENDER MERCIES. This word denotes a higher degree of goodness than the former, the most tender pity which we signify by the moving of the heart and bowels, which argues the highest degree of compassion of which human nature is susceptible. It is this degree of compassion and mercy that David is pleading for in his case because he was deeply aware of the awfulness of his crime!
ACCORDING TO THE MULTITUDE OF YOUR TENDER MERCIES, BLOT OUT MY TRANSGRESSIONS.
David was greatly terrified at the multitude of his sins but he is assured that His God has a multitude of mercies to cover them! If our sins be in number as the hairs of our head, God's mercies are as the stars of heaven; and He is an infinite God, so His mercies are infinite!
David's first feeling was relief that the hidden thing was out; he needed no longer practice deception and subterfuge. This relief let loose a torrent of self-indictment. He had said to Nathan: "As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he showed no pity." (2 Sam. 12:5-6)
The prophet turned David's indictment back on him, but he softened the judgment—"You shall not die"--and throughout this great penitential prayer there breathes the atmosphere of great relief.
BLOT OUT MY TRANSGRESSIONS!
What the Psalmist alludes to is the wiping or cleansing of a dish, so as nothing afterwards remains in it. The meaning of the petition is, that God would entirely and absolutely forgive him, so as that no part of the guilt he had contacted might remain, and the punishment of it might be wholly removed.
In this statement, there is reference to the indictment caused by his transgressions. The Psalmist knows what it contains; he pleads guilty, but begs that the writing may be defaced; that a proper fluid may be applied to the parchment, to discharge the ink, that no record of it may ever appear against him; and this only the mercy, lovingkindness and tender mercies of the Lord can do.
This is the promise of Isaiah...
"Come now, let us reason together," says the Lord, "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool." (Isaiah 1:18)
Ezekiel 36:25
"I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols."
Hebrews 9:14
"How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, cleanse our

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consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God."
Isaiah 43:25
"I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions, for My own sake, and remembers your sin no more."
Isaiah 44:22
"I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you."
Isaiah 55:7
"Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him, and to our God, for He will freely pardon."
Micah 7:18
"Who is a God like You, who pardons sins and forgives the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy."
1 John 1:9
"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins, and purify us from all unrighteousness."
WASH ME THOROUGHLY FROM INIQUITY AND CLEANSE ME FROM SIN. (v.2)
David prays that the Lord would WASH him; therefore sin defiles, and he was made foul and filthy by his sin. GOD DOES NOT TAKE SIN LIGHTLY! For sin staineth a man's body, it staineth a man's soul, it maketh him more vile than the vilest creature that lives. The verb TO WASH is used of the washing of a dirty garment.
SIN...is any failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude, or nature. David is quick to confess this failure and he seeks cleansing of the guilt, even though he knows that sin has its consequences and Nathan has pronounced them. God can and does forgive sin, but all too frequently we have done things which cannot be eradicated or changed, and with those consequences we must live.
My father wanted to teach me a lesson as a young boy.
He took me to the woodshed along with a nail, a hammer, and a piece of wood.
"Son," he said, "drive the nail into the wood." I did. "Son, pull out the nail." I did. "Now son, pull out the nail hole." I can't! "Son, life is like that. You can make decisions and follow through with those decisions, but please, never forget, you will always live the consequences of those decisions. Just make sure if life pulls out the nail, you are prepared to live with the nail hole. Then he added..."God can and does forgive, but there are some things, some nail holes, that you will live with even after He has forgiven and pulled out the nail!"
I have never forgotten the lesson and each time I am about to make a decision or perform an act, I always ask myself...Am I ready to live with the consequences?

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FOR I ACKNOWLEDGE MY TRANSGRESSION, AND MY SIN IS ALWAYS BEFORE ME. To acknowledge our transgressions, there is confession; and to have our sin ever before us, there is conviction and contrition.
David had broken five of the Ten Commandments in his sin! As they related to the immediate episode, they were lust, intrigue, adultery, treachery, and promotion of the murder of his trusted servant! When we confess our sins, it involves the calling to mind, the bringing back to our remembrance what we can, to own them with shame, and to declare them with sorrow.
TO HAVE OUR SIN EVER BEFORE US is to be sincerely troubled in mind about them, to be truly humbled under the sense and guilt of them.
Luther says "That is, my sin plagues me, gives me no rest, no peace, whether I eat or drink, sleep or wake, I am always in terror of God's wrath and judgment." But surely here, not the terror of God's wrath and judgment so much as the deep sorrow for despite done to God's love and goodness. DAVID DREADS NOT PUNISHMENT AS MUCH AS HE DREADS SEPARATION FROM GOD. "Cast me not away from your presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me." That was his cry!
In verse 4 of our Psalm, there follows an acknowledgment of the double evil of sin; first, in its aim, and next in its source; first, as done against God, and then as springing from a corrupt nature.
AGAINST THEE ONLY HAVE I SINNED AND DONE THIS EVIL IN THY SIGHT.
This language has perplexed commentators, who cannot understand how it could come from the mouth of David, who had been guilty of sins which were directly against men as well as against God! The sin against Bathsheba whom he had tempted, the sin against Uriah whom he had slain by the sword of another, the sin against his own family which he had polluted, and against his kingdom which he had weakened, were not all these sins against men? They were. And yet he says; "Against Thee only have I sinned."
Calvin gives this explanation: "I think the words are equivalent to his saying, Lord, though the whole world should acquit me, yet for me it is more than enough that I feel that Thou art my Judge, that conscience summons me and drags me to Thy bar; so that men's excuses for me are of no avail, whether they spare me, or whether to flatter me they make light of my crime, or try to assuage my grief with soothing words. He intimates therefore that he has his eyes and all his senses fixed upon God, and consequently does not care what men think or say. But whoever is thus crushed, yea overwhelmed by the weight of God's judgment, needs no other accuser, because God alone is more than a thousand others."
To this might he added that all human judges can only regard wrong actions as crimes; God alone takes cognizance of them as sins.

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AGAINST THEE ONLY HAVE I SINNED. Please let me suggest the following exposition:
"The words are to be explained by David's deep conviction of sin as sin. For the moment all else is swallowed up in that. Face to face with God, he sees nothing else, can think of nothing else, but His presence forgotten, His holiness outraged, His love scorned. Therefore he must confess and be forgiven by God before he could even think of the wrong done to his neighbor.
This deep feeling of the penitent heart, of the heart which loves God above all things, has its root in the very relation in which God stands to His creatures. All sin, as sin, is and must be against God.
All wrong done to our neighbor is wrong done to the one created in the image of God; all tempting of our neighbor to evil is taking the part of Satan against God, and, so far as in us lies, defeating God's good purpose of grace toward him.
All wounding of another, whether in person or property, in body or soul, is a sin against the goodness of God. The apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 8:12: "But when we sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ."
In like manner, all love to our neighbor is love to God whom we love in Him. On this principle we shall be judged; "Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these, ye have done it unto Me." (Matt. 25).
One Bible commentator remarks: "How must David have trembled, how must he have been seized with shame and grief, when he referred everything to God, when in Uriah he saw only the image of God, the Holy One, who deeply resented that injury,--the gracious and compassionate One, to whom he owed such infinitely rich benefits, who had lifted him up from the dust of humiliation, had so often delivered him, and had also given him the promise of so glorious a future."
ALL SIN IS AGAINST GOD. It is His law that has been broken, His will flouted His name dishonored.
Oh! If somehow we could grasp this dimension of sin...that if each time we are tempted we considered its impact upon a Holy God whom we say that we love...maybe our response to temptation would be different.
Nearly fifty years ago, a Bible teacher explained the implications of 1 Corinthians 6 and I have never forgotten it! Here is the passage: "Everything is permissible for me"--but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible for me--but I will not be mastered by anything. Food for the stomach and the stomach for food--but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. By His power God raised the Lord from the dead, and He will raise us also. DO YOU NOT KNOW THAT YOUR BODIES ARE MEMBERS OF CHRIST HIMSELF? SHALL I THEN TAKE THE MEMBERS OF Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Do you not know

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that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh." But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in Spirit.
HERE WAS THE EXPLANATION I HAVE NEVER FORGOTTEN! When we received Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, His Spirit comes to live within us.
When we decide to sin, His Spirit does not leave us while we are in the process of sinning. We drag the Spirit of Christ right into the act of sinning. When we sin the sin of fornication or adultery, we drag our Saviour right into that act! What a terrible thought...but surely this is why David makes this confession..."Against thee, and thee only have I sinned." Again I say, if only we could grasp this dimension of sin, I believe it would deeply effect our desire toward righteousness and holiness.
Verse 5 of our Psalm reads: "Behold I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me." David is not trying to pass the blame of his sin on his mother...that is not his point. In our day there is great effort made to always blame something else or someone else on our wrongdoing. It was my upbringing. It was the influence of my parents. Somebody else made me do it.
David is simply confirming the fact that all men are born sinners! Paul writes in Romans 3:9-18:
"What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes.
Here is the description of all of us as sinners! David is just confirming his sinful nature and acknowledging that his birth into this world brought him in a sinner with a sinful nature. The fountain of my life is polluted as well as all its streams. My birth tendencies are out of the square of equity. I naturally lean to forbidden things. Mine is a constitutional disease, rendering my very person obnoxious to thy wrath. In sin my mother conceived. David goes back to the earliest moment of his being, not to traduce his mother, but to acknowledge the deep tap-roots of his sin. David's mother was the Lord's handmaid, he was born in chaste wedlock, of a good father, and he himself "the man after God's own heart," and yet his nature was as fallen as that of any other son of Adam and there only needed the occasion for the manifesting of that sad fact.

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Verse 6 of our Psalm reads: "Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom."
BEHOLD. The word is used to indicate the attainment of a new and higher knowledge, as if it had come with something of surprise on the mind, or were seen· with a new brightness. The previous verse began with this word BEHOLD. The repetition of the word at the beginning of both of these verses marks the connection and correlation of them. On the one hand, lo! I have seen sin as I never saw it before. On the other, lo! I have learnt that truth is what Thou desirest in the secret heart.
Reality, sincerity, true holiness, heart-fidelity--these are the demands of God! He cares not for the pretence of purity, he looks to the mind, heart and the soul. Always has the Holy One of Israel estimated men by their nature, and not by their outward professions; to him the inward is as visible as the outward, and He rightly judges that the essential character of an action lies in the motive of him who works it. In this part of the Psalm, David is saying that God is teaching him truth concerning his nature, which he had not perceived. The love of the heart, the mystery of its fall, and the way of its purification--the hidden wisdom we must all attain; and it is a great blessing to be able to believe that the Lord will "make us to know it." No one can teach our innermost nature but the Lord, but He can instruct us to profit. The Holy Spirit can write the law on our heart, and that is the sum of practical wisdom. He can put the fear of the Lord within, and that is the beginning of wisdom.
PURGE ME WITH HYSSOP, AND I SHALL BE CLEAN, WASH ME, AND I SHALL BE WHITER THAN SNOW. (v.7)
Purge me...wash me...and if could read this in the original language, it implies that only God has the ability to UN-SIN me!
Purge me with hyssop...or...sprinkle the atoning blood upon me with the appointed means. Give me the reality which legal ceremonies symbolize. Nothing but the blood can take away my blood-stains, nothing but the strongest purification can avail to cleanse me. Let the sin offering purge my sin. Let him was appointed to atone, execute His sacred office on me!
HYSSOP! It was a branch used in sprinkling of blood. It is referred to in Exodus 12 when the children of Israel are instructed to kill a lamb and sprinkle its blood WITH HYSSOP on the doorposts and lintels of their dwellings.
Verse 22 "And you shall take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. And none of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning.
Again, hyssop is referred to in Leviticus 14 where the ritual for

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cleansing lepers is laid out.
Leviticus 14:1-7 "Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, This shall be the law of the leper for the day of his cleansing; He shall be brought to the priest.
And the priest shall go out of the camp, and the priest shall examine him; and indeed, if the leprosy is healed in the leper,
then the priest shall command to take for him who is to be cleansed two living and clean birds, cedar wood, scarlet and hyssop.
And the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running water.
As for the living bird, he shall take it, the cedar wood and the scarlet and the hyssop, and dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water.
And he shall sprinkle it seven times on him who is to be cleansed from the leprosy, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose in the open field."
So Hyssop was always associated with the thought of cleansing, and David is sincerely seeking that cleansing from God. David evidently sees that the outward lustration is a sign of a better cleansing; another proof of that profound spiritual insight which throughout the Psalm is so striking.
WASH ME AND I SHALL BE WHITER THAN SNOW. Isaiah writes: "Come now, and let us reason together," says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."
Scarcely does the Holy Scriptures contain a verse more full of faith than this verse. Consider the nature of the sin, and the deep sense the Psalmist had of it, it is a glorious faith to be able to see in the blood sufficient, nay, all-sufficient merit entirely to purge it away. Considering also the deep, natural inbred corruption which David saw and experienced within, it is a miracle of faith that he could rejoice in the hope of perfect purity in his inward parts.
MAKE ME TO HEAR JOY AND GLADNESS, THAT THE BONES YOU HAVE BROKEN MAY REJOICE. (v. 8) David has asked for pardon...now he asks that once again, joy may return to his heart. All of us will agree that sin has the capacity to take the real joy out of living. In its place, sin brings guilt, anxiety, frustration, pain and remorse.
God's voice speaking peace is the sweetest music an ear can hear!
Sin has the capacity to crush us and leave us incapacitated to be our best...and this David has felt deeply.
Observe the man in the gutter, held in bondage of addiction and sin.
His occupation is gone, his profession squandered, his family in shreds, and his life without purpose and meaning. The bones...the structures that make life worth living...are broken and useless!

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When David speaks of THE BONES WHICH THOU HAST BROKEN, he is not speaking of fleshly wounds...but his manhood had become a dislocated, mangled, quivering sensibility. He is requesting a great thing; he seeks joy for a sinful heart, music for crushed bones. Preposterous prayer anywhere but at the throne of God!
Verse 9 of our Psalm reads: "HIDE YOUR FACE FROM MY SINS, AND BLOT OUT AIL MY INIQUITIES." The second division of the Psalm begins here with the renewed prayer for forgiveness. From the confident assurance of the last two verses, that God would do that which he asked, David now passes to earnest pleading with God. This is surely what is to be found in all true prayer; it will be marked by fluctuations of feeling; its order will be the order of need, not the order of intellect.
Again, David asks for forgiveness first, and then for renewal.
"For though God fully and completely forgives," says Calvin, "still the narrowness of our faith does not take in so large a goodness on His part, but it must flow down to us gradually and drop by drop." Souls in agony have no space to find variety in language; pain has to content itself with monotones. David's face was ashamed with looking on his sin, and no diverting thoughts could remove it from his memory; but he prays the Lord to do with his sin what he himself cannot. If God hide not His face from our sin, He must hide it forever from us; and if He blot not out our sins, He must blot our names out of His Book of Life.
After the prayer of forgiveness there follows now the prayer for renewal and sanctification.
CREATE IN ME A CLEAN HEART, 0 GOD, AND RENEW A STEADFAST SPIRIT WITHIN ME. (v. 10) The word CREATE is always used strictly of the creative power of God. The whole spiritual being of the man had, as it were, fallen into chaos. The pure heart and the childlike feeling of confidence could only return as a new creation.
Paul picks up this thought in 2 Corinthians 5:17: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."
In the seventh verse he asked to be clean; now he seeks a heart suitable to that cleanliness; but he does not say, "Make my old heart clean; he is too experienced in the hopelessness of the old nature. He would have the old man buried as a dead thing, and a new creation brought in to fill its place.
None but God can create either a new heart or a new earth!
Salvation is a marvelous display of supreme power; the work in us as much as that for us is wholly of Omnipotence. The heart is the rudder of the soul, and till the Lord take it in hand we steer in a false and foul way.

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RENEW A RIGHT SPIRIT WITHIN ME. The law of my heart has become like an inscription hard to read; please write it anew, 0 gracious Maker. Some translations read: RENEW A STEADFAST SPIRIT WITHIN ME. A steadfast spirit is, firm in faith, not easily swayed hither and thither through its own weakness or by blasts of temptation, and therefore also firm and constant in obedience.
CAST ME NOT AWAY FROM THY PRESENCE AND TAKE NOT THY HOLY SPIRIT FROM ME. (v. 1l)
Some Bible scholars see an allusion partly to the exclusion of the leper from the congregation, others see in this prayer David's deep concern that God not reject the nation of Israel from His favor because of his sin.
Could it not be that David witnessed first-hand the taking of God's Spirit from King Saul, the first King of Israel.
1 Samuel 16:13-14

Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel arose and went to Ramah.
BUT THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD DEPARTED FROM SAUL, AND A DISTRESSING spirit from the Lord troubled him."
In the closing days of Saul's life, he consults a Medium and Samuel confronts him. (1 Samuel 28:11-17)
"Then the woman said, "Whom shall I bring up for you? And he said, "Bring up Samuel for me."
When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice. And the woman spoke to Saul, saying, "Why have you deceived me? For you are Saul!"
And the king said to her, "Do not be afraid. What did you see? And the woman said to Saul, "I saw a spirit ascending out of the earth. So he said to her, "What is his form? And she said, "An old man is coming up and he is covered with a mantle. And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground and bowed down.

Now Samuel said to Saul, "Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up? And Saul answered, "I am deeply distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, AND GOD HAS DEPARTED FROM ME AND DOES NOT ANSWER ME ANYMORE, NEITHER BY PROPHETS NOR BY DREAMS. Therefore I have called you, that you may reveal to me what I should do."
Then Samuel said; "SO WHY DO YOU ASK ME, SEEING THE LORD HAS DEPARTED FROM YOU AND HAS BECOME YOUR ENEMY?"
Saul's life was a tragedy and David surely did not want to go through the loss of God's Spirit because of his sin.
So David is praying...Lord, don't give up on me, or banish me from

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Your presence. I can't stand the thought of being from You, or of having YOUR HOLY SPIRIT taken from me.
RESTORE TO ME THE JOY OF YOUR SALVATION, AND UPHOLD ME BY YOUR GENEROUS SPIRIT. (v. 12) Sin does rob us of the joy of the Lord, and David is praying for the restoration of that joy he once knew with God. Nome but God can give back this joy; He can do it; we may ask it; He will do it for His own glory and our benefit.
Sir Richard Baker writes: "How can God restore that which He took not away? For, can I charge God with the taking away the joy of His salvation from me? O gracious God, I charge not Thee with taking it, but myself with losing it; and such is the miserable condition of us poor wretches, that if thou shouldst restore no more to us than what thou takes from us; we should quickly be at a fault in our estates, and our ruin would be as sudden as inevitable."
The Scriptures remind us that must take heed that when we think we can stand...that is the moment we fall! We must be reliant upon the Spirit of God at work in lives if we are going to stand against wiles and arrows of the devil. Paul tells us that we must put on the full armor of God so that can stand when temptation comes. "Finally my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil." (Ephesians 6:10-11)
THEN I WILL TEACH TRANSGRESSORS THY WAYS, AND SINNERS WILL BE CONVERTED TO YOU. (v. 13) David does not want his experience to be for naught...he wants others to know the weakness of the human being and pain of sin. It was his fixed resolve to be a teacher of others; and assuredly none instruct others so well as those who have been experimentally taught of God themselves.
Those who have experienced the loss of family, friends, job or profession because of sin, have much to teach others about the price of sin once God graciously has forgiven them. Sin is not something we pride ourselves in...our past is never spoken of just for the purpose to telling how deep we fell...but when referred to, it is for the purpose of warning others. SIN IS ETERNALLY COSTLY, if not forgiven by a gracious God.
DELIVER ME FROM THE GUILT OF BLOODSHED, O GOD, THE GOD OF MY SALVATION, AND MY TONGUE SHALL SING ALOUD OF YOUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. (v. 14)
The blood of Uriah, whom he had slain, seems to cry against David for punishment. He had destroyed a beautiful family, had the father murdered, stole the wife...and I can only believe that every time he looked upon the offspring of Bathsheba, the sting of the murder was ever before him. Memory has written its scenes on our mind that never will be erased in this life even though God forgives!

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O LORD, OPEN THOU MY LIPS, AND MY MOUTH SHALL SHOW FORTH THY PRAISE. (v 15) In the previous verse, David had prayed that with God's forgiveness, his tongue could sing aloud of God's righteousness.
Question? Why is this attribute of God especially mentioned as the subject of praise? Surely not in that vague sense in which, as one Bible student writes, "as the principle of God's government," but with especial reference to the forgiveness of sins. The righteousness of God is that attribute according to which He gives to every one his own, to those who with repentance and faith turn to Him, the forgiveness which they ask, and which He has promised to bestow.
"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)
SIN HAS SEALED HIS LIPS! But with the gift of God's forgiveness, his lips could once again be used as an instrument of praise!
Psalm 66:16
"Come and listen, all you who fear God; let me tell you what he has done for me."
Isaiah 63:7
"I will tell you of the kindness of the Lord, the deeds for which He is to be praised, according to all the Lord has done for us--yes, the many good things He has done for the house of Israel, according to His compassion and many kindnesses."
FOR YOU DO NOT DESIRE SACRIFICE, OR ELSE I WOULD GIVE IT: YOU DO NOT DELIGHT IN BURNT OFFERING. (v. 16) It is not some ceremonial act of worship, as significant as that may be...it is a heart that is contrite and spirit that is broken God takes delight in.
There may be another reason why David here affirms that God would not accept of a sacrifice, nor be pleased with a burnt offering. No particular sacrifices were appointed by the law of Moses to expiate the quilt of murder and adultery. The person who had perpetrated these crimes was, accord to the divine law, to be punished with death!
David therefore may be understood as declaring, that it was utterly vain for him to think of resorting to sacrifices and burnt offerings with a view to the expiation of his guilt; that his criminality was of such a character, that the ceremonial law made no provision for his deliverance from the doom which his deeds of horror deserved. THE SACRIFICES OF GOD ARE A BROKEN SPIRIT, A BROKEN AND A CONTRITE HEART--THESE 0 GOD, YOU WILL NOT DESPISE. The joy of forgiveness does not banish sorrow and contrition for sin; this will still continue. And the deeper the sense of sin, and the truer the sorrow for it, the more heartfelt also will be the thankfulness for pardon and reconciliation. The tender, humble, broken-heart is therefore the best thank-offering.