Sermon
God's Gift Of Forgiveness (Part 2)
July 28-29, 2001
Pastor Donald Sheley

We're spending our summer in the Psalms, going through a number of them. We've come to a Psalm where we introduced it last Sunday, Psalm 51. We noted in most of our Bibles that at the beginning of this Psalm is a statement that says this is a Psalm by David written or produced after his confrontation with Nathan the prophet relative to his sin with Bathsheba. And so what we did was last Sunday we went back to the story in 2 Samuel and we reviewed that story of that tragic sin that failure on David's part, and how it affected his life and his kingdom the rest of his life. Might I suggest before we start today in the reading of the Scripture, we find there are two Davids that are very prominent, not two different individuals, but the story of David's life is found in 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel. And it's interesting that his first 50 years, or approximate 50 years, are covered in 1 Samuel. We have a shepherd boy who comes from the sheepfold, anointed by the prophet, and ultimately arrives in the throne of a palace in Israel. He's king. He's loved. He enjoys prosperity. His subjects are loyal to him. He's at the height of his life and its accomplishments, and then we come to 2 Samuel and the scene quickly changes.

David fails. He commits the sin with Bathsheba, and most of 2 Samuel tells us the tragic story of how he paid for that dastardly sin. That's the story that we read last week. Now let's go to the prayer and it's recorded there in your notes or you may turn to page 388 in your red pew Bible if you'd just like to read the prayer along with me. After Nathan confronts him, David, of course, admits that he has sinned against God. And we suggested that in that 2 Samuel passage the next verse of course says that Nathan says you shall not die. Most theologians would suggest that between those two sentences probably the insertion of this prayer:

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.

Now we recorded for your convenience the story of that fall on pages 2 and 3 of our notes, and now we come to page 4. I'm at the bottom of the page. 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 the warrior-husband. Sounds like a modern-day newspaper story. But as David opens his prayer; I want you quickly today go to the next page, down at the bottom of page 5. He begins his prayer by saying 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. And the Hebrew word here translated 'have mercy' signifies 'without cause or desert'; in other words, God grant me Your eternal favor. I don't deserve it. Give it to me freely. There's no price I could pay for it.

It's interesting that this phrase 'have mercy' finds its way all the way through the Psalms of David. Let's go back in our book of Psalms to Psalm 4. I want to show you something very interesting. This theme of mercy -- he had a relationship with God. He understood the mercy of God probably far greater than any other human being. Look at what he says and Psalm 4:1; Hear me when I call, 0 God of my righteousness! You have relieved me in my distress; have mercy on me, and hear my prayer. Psalm 5:7; But as for me, I will come into Your house in the multitude of Your mercy; in fear of You I will worship toward Your holy temple. Psalm 6:1-4; O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger, nor chastened me in Your hot displeasure. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are troubled. My soul also is greatly troubled; but You, O Lord--how long? Return, O Lord, deliver me! Oh, save me for Your mercies' sake!

Psalm 23:5-6; You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. David sees that behind him, all the way through life, God's mercy and goodness are ever present. Go with me to Psalm 25:6-11; Remember, O Lord, Your tender mercies and Your lovingkindnesses, for they are from of old. Do not remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions; according to Your mercy remember me, for Your goodness' sake, Oh Lord. Good and upright is the Lord; therefore He teaches sinners in the way. The humble He guides in justice, and the humble He teaches His way. All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth, to such as keep His covenant and His testimonies.

Notice Psalm 27:7-10; Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice! Have mercy also upon me, and answer me. When You said, "Seek My face," my heart said to You, "Your face, Lord, I will seek." Do not hide Your face from me; do not turn Your servant away in anger; You have been my help; do not leave me nor forsake me, O God of my salvation. When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. There's another beautiful Psalm, and it's Psalm 103. Would you go there with me? Here, of course, we have a beautiful description of the mercy of God. Psalm 103:6 says; the Lord executes righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known His ways to Moses, and His acts to the children of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. He will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our inequities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourishes. For the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children's children, to such as keep His covenant, and to those who remember His commandments to do them. The Lord has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all.

It's obvious when you go through the writings of David the theme of mercy. God's kindness administered to a guilt-ridden soul; His love poured out upon him so undeserving as it was. Let's go back to our notes. He prays have mercy upon me 0 God. And I make an observation here that the bottom of page 5, mercy, lovingkindness, and tender mercies; it's interesting to note the gradation in the sense of the three words that David uses here to express the divine compassion, and the propriety of the order in which they are placed. First is mercy. It denotes the kind of affection that is expressed by moaning over any object that we love and pity. The second word is lovingkindness and it denotes a strong proneness, a liberal disposition to goodness and compassion powerfully prompting to all instances of kindness and bounty; flowing as freely and as plentifully as water from a perpetual fountain. And then he adds a third word--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 the 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. He says according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. David was greatly terrified at the multitude of his sins but he was 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 to practice deception or subterfuge. This relief let loose a torrent of self-indictment. And he 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 mercy."

And the prophet turned David's indictment back on him, but he softened the judgment-"You shall not die." And throughout this great Psalm there breathes the atmosphere of great relief of a man who should die because there was no sacrifice for his sin, only judgment. And you find this heart that seems to be released from the knowledge that at least he's been forgiven and he will not die. God has pardoned him. And then he prays blot out my transgressions. Now this is fascinating. In the original Hebrew it has many implications. David is saying I am a vessel, but I've dirtied myself. I've allowed unclean things to enter. And as you would wash a plate, as you would wash a dish from all of its impurities, O God, take this dish, this vessel, and wash me thoroughly as if it had been in the dishwasher.

But there's another part. He sees in his mind of ancient time when people wrote on papyrus and what was called ink was not like the ink we have today. It was a substance -- it was a fluid -- it marked the papyrus or the parchment, but the ink did not dig in to the material itself. And thus, it was easily removed with just water. And so here's what David is saying, I have marked the parchment of my life and I wrote sin upon it, and I want you to take Your lovingkindness, Your tender mercies, and I want you to wipe away what I have written in my life.

I went back into some ancient texts to some writers of the Puritans of the 1700s, and old Dr. Manten, when I read this I jumped for joy. He's saying that in the original the Hebrew is saying, dear God please unsin me. Did you get it? God, just unsin me as if I had never sinned. It's the great word of the gospel which we say is justification--just as if we had never sinned. He is saying, God, please let me stand before You unsinned. You know, I've suggested to the other congregations--what a prayer, on our knees when we're asking for forgiveness; dear God, please just unsin me. Just may You wipe away whatever I've written on the parchment of my life, whatever I've poured into this vessel that should not have been there, wash me thoroughly. Blot out my transgressions and may I stand before You just as if I had never sinned.

Some as you sit here with me today and you don't have to look very far back in your life where there were a lot of things for which you wish never had taken place. There are sins that were there. When you came to Christ in true repentance He just unsinned you. I think that's such a beautifully descriptive word. We stand before Him--David said just unsin me, blot it out, wash it whiter than snow. What the Psalmist alludes to in the wiping or the 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.

And in this statement, there is reference to the indictment caused by his transgression. The Psalmist knows what it contains-death; he pleads guilty, but he 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. And then I bring before us in our note the invitation that old Isaiah said, Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins be like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

You know, sometimes I think we preachers have made God out to be something maybe He isn't in some ways. Dr. Phillips writes a great book, How Big Is Your God? And he said that sometimes we think of God as the ogre who hangs over the balconies of heaven with a 2x4 in His hand ready to hit us every time we sin. David sees God in this light, he said, God, You know my frame. You know that I'm just dust. Now this doesn't in any way excuse my sin. I'm not saying that, dear God, but thanks be to God that You do understand my frailty and You do understand my weakness, and I will fail as hard as I try. David perceived God as a father sitting there waiting for his son to come home. It's a story that Jesus tells in Luke 15. He said, when the prodigal boy came home the dad didn't sit there and say, now look at, what have you done with all that money I gave you? What have you been doing? No, the father knew the heart of his son because he knew that there had to be repentance otherwise his son wouldn't have come running across the hills to home. He said, quickly, go get the robe and put it on my son.

I think God looked at David--you see, David was a man deeply in love with God. All you have to do is read his Psalms and you know what happened that evening, that afternoon, in a split second he fell, but it wasn't from a hardened heart. God knew that. David is truly repentant and he sees a God who ever waits for us to come and say, I'm sorry. And He's more anxious to give then we are to receive. You know at times I wish I could be more merciful, but there have been times when I thank God for a little wisdom.

Many years ago when my boys were much younger--and as I have done over the years I go down to Pescadero to a Christian Camp and I park my motor home and spend a few days, almost every week in years past praying and thinking and studying and preparing for Sunday. And so I went down a few years ago and I've got my little motor home parked there and it's 4:00 in the morning and I hear a knock at the door. I thought to myself, who's coming to visit me at a Christian Camp at 4:00 in the morning? And I said, who is it? My son said, Daddy, it's me; Vernita said I'm here. So I invited them in and he's just weeping, and you could just tell he's just broken hearted. He's sorry for whatever happened.

I said, son, what happened? Well, he said, dad, the young people tonight we were all having a party and this guy tried to steal my girlfriend, so I beat him up and when I beat him up I cussed him out. He said, Daddy, I feel so bad. I should never have done it. He said, I just feel terrible. I said, son, just sit down here at the dinette and let me ask you some questions. Did you ask the boy to forgive you? Yes Dad I did. Did you ask God to forgive you? Yes I've done that all the way down to this place. And, of course, coming here you're asking me to forgive you, and you're already forgiven son. Now you forgive yourself. Let's have a prayer and you hurry back home because you've only got a couple hours of sleep before you have to go back to work. I never have forgotten that moment because it was the moment that I think in some way I was the kind of dad that I should have been in being ready to give mercy. David knew his heavenly Father was that way. He knew his heavenly Father understood his heart. He knew when he came he'd be forgiven and he'd be unsinned, made whole.

You know, I dwell upon this today because some of you maybe have pasts that you would to God were not there. Sins that Satan just plagues your mind, and as hard as you try you can't get away from them in the sense of their memory. David says, listen, He knows our frame. He knows that we are just dust. He'll take our sins and remove them from us as far as the east is from the west--never to be remembered against us anymore. Why don't you accept today the totality of His forgiveness? Remember when you came and you repentant, He unsinned you, and you walked away as if you had never sinned. Just leave the past in His hands. Will you do that? There's not a thing we can do. David couldn't have gone back and changed what happened yesterday, neither can we, but I want you to know when we come in true repentance we walk away unsinned and that should make some of us jump for joy. Amen? The gift of God's forgiveness.

Father, it's hard for us to see how You do forgive and forget because this thing just kind of latches on to us and the past hangs on tenaciously. Help us to realize today as we walk out of this sanctuary when we have come to You in repentance You took all of our sin, and You don't remember them against us anymore. That's marvelous. Help us to feel and experience that joyous freedom that comes in Your forgiveness. Set us free from a past that none of us want to remember. Thank you Jesus, and everybody said, amen. God bless you folks.