Genuine repentance, as exemplified by David's prayer in Psalm 51, involves a profound recognition of sin's cost and a broken heart before God, not a superficial confession. David's sin against God, his wife, and Uriah, detailed in 2 Samuel 11, led to a deep plea for cleansing and a new heart, acknowledging secret and presumptuous sins for which no sacrifice was prescribed. The sermon emphasizes that true repentance requires God to create a clean heart and renew a right spirit, leading to the restoration of joy and the upholding power of the Holy Spirit, as illustrated by Joseph's forgiveness of his brothers in Genesis 45.
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morning we're turning again to Psalm fifty one and we want to read the first fourteen verses now you're turning let me just say this to those who are going to help in the Bible school tomorrow night and the other night we're going to have a meeting of all who are going to help in the Bible school tonight immediately after the evening service and Mrs. Mann would like especially to meet with those who are going to help her in refreshments for the young people. Now, Psalm fifty one.
Last week we looked at the high cost of sin. Today we want to deal with a high cost of redemption. The most valuable thing in the universe is your soul. What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and he lose his own soul? But the most expensive thing in the universe is sin. Verse one of Psalm fifty one, Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against thee the only have I sinned, and then is evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judges. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden parts, 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 iniquity. 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.
Now may the Lord bless his word. Let's again pray. Oh, Father, we realize the costliness of sin, and we ask you to deliver us from cheap confession and cheap repentance. That doesn't mean anything and doesn't do anybody any good. Help us to see what is truly involved. And may it please me. To speak to each of our hearts. For Jesus' sake. Amen. Last week from verses in two we looked at the high cost of sin.
And we see how high the cost was. When we realize what sin is. For this is David's prayer of repentance. After he had committed adultery. And then committed murder to cover his traps. And when you examine what David did in Second Samuel chapter eleven, you find that he, first of all, he broke the tenth commandment, which says thou shalt not covet, and he coveted. Then he broke the seventh commandment, which says thou shalt not commit adultery, he committed adultery. Then he broke the sixth commandment, which says thou shalt do no murder, he murdered Uriah with a sword of the Moabites.
Now, David, when he cries out and he uses the words, blot out my transgressions, he was a transgressor. That means he was a rebel, and he was therefore a debtor to God. Then he said, cleanse, wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity. He saw himself as crooked, and because of it, he was defiled. And he says, Lord, I need a bath. Wash me. wash away the guilt. Oh, I'm so crooked. And I'm crooked on the inside. But then he saw himself as disease. For he said, cleanse me from my sin.
And it was the leper who was cleansed. And he saw himself as a moral leper before God. Now, Second Samuel chapter twelve gives us the background for this psalm. Nathan the prophet comes to David, and he tells him the story of the rich man and the poor man. And David pronounced judgment upon the rich man. And Nathan the prophet said to him, David, you're the man. And then he reminded David of all that God gave him, of all the wives that he had, and he took another man's wife. And then he said, you murdered Uriah.
with a sword of the Moabites, or the sword of the children of Ammon. And it was then that David repented of his sins. Now, I mentioned briefly three commandments of the law of God that David had broken. I want you to turn with me to Psalm nineteen, for in the nineteenth Psalm, David has much to say concerning the commandments of God. And then we want to concentrate on what David said after he spoke of God's commandments. Psalm nineteen is a psalm that is known primarily for its first verse.
The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork. But when you get down to verse seven, he says, the law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey.
and the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is thy servant warned, and in keeping of them there is great reward. David had much to say concerning the law of God in these verses. However, when we say this, he also has something else to say. Notice verse twelve. Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret false. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sin. Let them not have dominion over me. Then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgressions.
While David had much to say concerning the law of the Lord, David also introduces a subject here of presumptuous sin. We all have secret faults. that nobody else knows about. But God does. And David, when he repented, he cried out, Thou desirous truth, where? In the inward parts, where nobody else can see. But where you, O God, see. And you know I'm filthy on the inside. And I need to be cleansed on the inside. You see, secret faults we all have.
Things that no one else knows about. And then he deals with presumptuous sin. Deuteronomy chapter seventeen verse twelve says this. The man that will do presumptuous wrath and will not hearken. Even that man shall die. Deuteronomy chapter seventeen verse twelve. David said keep back thy servant from presumptuous sin. Then. I shall be free of the great transgression. But David sinned presumptuous land. And he wasn't free of the great transgression.
He was guilty of the great transgression. You see, what makes it so serious is this. There were no sacrifices for presumptuous sins. If you study the law of God in the book of Leviticus, and especially chapters four and five, in chapter four of Leviticus you have the sin offering. In chapter five you have the trespass offering. But in each of these they dealt only with sin of ignorance. David's sin was not a sin of ignorance. When David looked at Bathsheba, The first thing he was told was that she was the wife of Uriah the Hittite.
She belonged to another man. But he deliberately took her. He presumptuously presumed, I can do whatever I please. I am the king. That was David's position that he took. It was presumptuous sin. There were no sacrifices. for presumptuous sin. The sin offering and the trespass offering, friends, were for sins of ignorance. Now, David's desire in Psalm nineteen is not to violate the revealed will of God, for that's presumptuous sin.
Presumptuous sin is to go contrary to the revealed will of God, but David did. Therefore, he prayed, In Psalm fifty one. I'll hold you back in Psalm fifty one with me now. Psalm fifty one, David's praise. Verse sixteen. And look at it. We didn't read this in the opening scripture reading. He says, For thou desirous not sacrifice, else would I give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
David prayed and he says, you don't desire a sacrifice, else I would give it. You see, there wasn't any. There wasn't any available under the Levitical law for presumptuous sin, for willful, deliberate disobedience to the revealed will of God. There wasn't any. And furthermore, David was a wealthy man. He could have brought all kinds of sacrifices and offered them to God. But the sacrifices he would have brought would have never done a bit of good if his heart was not right with God. And that's why he said, oh God, the one sacrifice that you really want is a heart that is crushed because of sin.
A heart that is crushed because I have disobeyed your voice. a heart that is crushed because I have violated your commandment. Have you ever had a broken heart over sin? To the seven churches in Asia Minor, and the Lord Jesus creatures, those seven messengers, as you have in Revelation chapter two and three, in six of those messengers, in six of those little epistles that he sends to the churches. He says, repent, repent, repent.
Have you ever had a broken heart? A broken heart, O God, thou wilt not be spied. You see, David is caught between the rock and the hard place. And this is where God brings every one of his children who disobey him. There isn't one of us that can not come here. For whosoever the Lord loves, he chastens us. And like as a father piteeth his children, so the Lord pityeth them that fear him. You see, a person who is saved is a child of God.
As earthly parents, do we care for our children? As an earthly parent, I'll tell you something. When something happens to any one of my children or grandchildren, it bothers me far more than if it happened to me. Do you think the Lord is any different? David didn't go after the Lord. The Lord went after David. Why? He's his child. He loved him.
For a whole year, David got away with what, at least a year with what he had done. He didn't think anybody knew it. But God knew it. And God's going to deal with David. In the hundred-thirds psalm, we read, Like as a father, piteous his children. So the Lord piteous them that fear him. The high cost of repentance, friends, is a broken heart. Now, how do I know that David's heart is broken? Well, we want to look at what he says. And we want to look particularly at verses ten through verse twelve.
In verses ten through twelve, we can see the broken heart of David. Now, he expresses his awful condition in the opening verses. But in verses ten through twelve, he cries out to God, first of all, created me a clean heart, O God. In verse seven, he said, Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Now he asks for a heart that is suitable to that cleanliness that comes from being washed to God, by being washed by God. Now notice he didn't say, Make my heart clean. That's the chief evangelism of our day.
Don't get rid of the old heart. Don't give me a new one, just clean it up a little bit. David didn't say, make my heart clean. He said, create, and only God can create. He's calling upon God to do something like he did in the beginning in creation. Well, that's what God promises in Ezekiel thirty-six. A new heart will I give you. And in first, second Corinthians chapter three, the word of God teaches us that in the new covenant, the blessing of the new covenant, God writes his law there in the heart and in the mind. Create in me a clean heart, oh God.
You see, David knew the hopelessness of the old nature. He knew it was incurable. He didn't ask God to make up his heart clean. He said create it. I want a new heart. Create in me a clean heart, O God. In other words, the Creator is called in to make something out of nothing. And He's the only one who can. No man can create anything. Only God can. And He calls upon God to do it. And then He added, renew a right spirit within me. In other words, the affections of my heart have been hard to read. replace it oh God we knew a right spirit within me I need to have a work done on the inside I'm filthy within created me a clean heart oh God but then he said something else and here's where we see I believe true repentance and a true broken heart he says cast me not away from thy presence He cries out to God, oh God, don't throw me away as worthless.
He says to God, oh God, don't banish me like you did Cain from thy face and from thy favor. For when God banished Cain, he went up from the presence of the Lord. Oh, David realized how holy God was. And he cries out, Oh God, don't punish me as he did to me. My friend, this is a broken heart. What he's saying is, Oh God, permit me to be among those who share thy love. Don't deny me admission into your courts. It was only to be a doorkeeper, for I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than dwell in the fence of wickedness.
Don't punish me. Now he says, I deserve to be denied. I don't deserve to be among your people. I deserve to be denied, but permit me the privilege of being with those that love you, for it means more to me than life. Psalm sixty-three verse three says, because thy loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. Don't finish me from your friend. But then he said something else. He said, take not thy Holy Spirit from me.
I know we usually immediately jump to show that under the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit was given to the anointed ones of God to perform a special service. But what David is saying here is this, don't withdraw the comforts of the Holy Spirit. Don't be withdraw the counsels of the Holy Spirit. Don't withdraw the assistances and the quickening of the Holy Spirit, else I am like a dead man. Don't withdraw the Holy Spirit from me, for I was there when you withdrew the Holy Spirit from King Saul.
And when you withdrew the Holy Spirit from King Saul, you wouldn't answer him anymore. He prayed, he called, but you didn't answer. Lord, I don't want to be in that condition. For you didn't answer him by dream. You didn't answer him by prophet. You didn't answer King Paul by the Urim. Oh, please don't put me in that condition. I've broken your commandments. Oh, Lord, my heart's broken. Don't take your Holy Spirit from me.
Now you and I who are saved in this age, we have the promise that the Holy Spirit will abide with us forever. But remember that same doctrine of the Holy Spirit teaches us that we can quench the Holy Spirit and that we can grieve the Holy Spirit. And if we do, if we do, we don't have his counsel. We don't have his quickening. We don't have his comforts that we need and we need so desperately. O Lord, he says, do this for me, for your mercy's sake.
That's why he begins by saying, have mercy upon me, O Lord. But then he goes to stepfather. He says, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. Now David had known the salvation of God. He knew what it meant to be the Lord's own child. He had walked with the Lord. He had written those words, the Lord is my shepherd. He was able to say, I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever, as you read in Psalm twenty three. But now, you see, David knew the joy that arises from being saved by the Lord and belonging to the Lord.
He knew the joy, but that joy song. The most miserable people in the world are Christians who have lost the joy of their salvation because of sin. I don't know any more of a miserable person than anybody like that. And I've been around some of them. They have no joy. They have no joy. All they want to do is talk about eternal security. That's all. But the real joy of living the Christian life, they really don't have it.
It's gone. And they need a broken heart. But instead, a cheap confession and cheap repentance is what they want. You can't have it that way, friend. David realized the awfulness of it. He said, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. You see, the joy was gone. And David longed to have that joy back. Oh, that I might know the joy of salvation. You see, now none that God can give us this joy. Can't get it anywhere else. Can't get it singing in the choir.
You can't get it listening to the preacher. You can only get it one place. That's from the Lord. You see, it's the joy of pardon and the joy of purity. Then he adds, uphold me with our free spirit. You see, David is conscious of his weakness and he's mindful of having fallen so deeply. He's mindful of all this. And now David wants power so that his feet will be kept and he wants a power. that is far superior to his own. That's what he wants. For when we trust our own ability, we're going to go astray. But when the Holy Spirit, whose holiness is true dignity, it is he who is able to make us walk as kings and as priests in all the uprightness of holiness.
Abold me with thy free spirit. You see, in the best path we stumble. if we are left to ourselves. So the praying for joy and the praying to be upheld go together. Now David got it. God answered his prayer. So turn with me now to Psalm thirty-two. Psalm thirty-two. I want to take up seven things from Psalm thirty-two in closing. In the opening verses of Psalm thirty-two Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven and whose faith covered.
Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord impudeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no God. Here David speaks of a blessedness of forgiveness, and it becomes the great illustration that Paul uses in Romans chapter four to teach the great doctrine of justification by faith. Now there are a lot of things I'd like to say about this. David is rejoicing in the opening two verses of forgiveness, the forgiveness that God gave him. Then he tells us how he got it. And I want you to read how he got it.
First there was silence. Verse three, when I kept silence, my bones waxed old to my roaring all the day. In other words, for over a year David was like this. Can you imagine? Here's a Christian, a believer living like this for over a year. No joy on the inside, hiding sin, covering sin, silent about it. When I kept silent, my bones were I stalled through my roaring all the day. Oh, there was nothing in David that brought joy or peace. There was silence. But then he said, You see, hiding his sin brought him nothing but sorrow.
For he says in verse four, For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture returned unto the drought of summer, Sheila. But then notice, I acknowledge my sin unto thee, and my iniquity have I not hidden. I said I will transgress. I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord. And thou forgave us the iniquity of my sins. There was confession. And the very next thing that he learned was a free pardon. Oh, the blessedness of the forgiveness of sins. He didn't hide it. That broken heart brought him into the presence of God.
There was a genuine repentance. And there was a true forgiveness that he wasn't ashamed of that he could talk about. And the reason that we go silent about forgiveness is because we've never had a genuine broken heart in the presence of a holy God that brought us to this place. But then he moves on. Notice what he says in verse seven. In verse seven he said, thou art my hiding place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble. Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. For he's singing now. He knows the blessings of the forgiveness friends.
And now he's able to sing. But notice verse eight or verse nine. He instructs others. And he's instructing them like himself. And he says, don't be like a horse or a mule, which have no understanding. Whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee. I don't know if you work much with horses or mules. But there's a difference between a horse and a mule. Now Matthew David says, now don't be like a horse and don't be like a mule. You know what the horse does? The horse gets a bit between his teeth and he runs and you can't stop it. If you ever are riding a horse and he gets a bit between his teeth and he is the kind that wants to run and do his own thing, you can't stop him.
There are a lot of Christians like that. David was like that. He was told that's the wife of Uriah, but he couldn't be stopped. I'm going to have my own way. Don't be like a horse. But you know what a mule is like. You see, the horse, you can't stop that he wants to go, but the old mule, he just cleanses me, and he won't go at all. I'm not going to do it. Have I met any Christian like that? I won't. David says, I've been through this. Don't be like a horse. Don't be like a mule. Now we all know about Peter's sin, don't we?
When Peter denied the Lord. A lot of people know about Peter's sin of denying the Lord who know nothing about Peter's confession and he's repented. I want to just say this. All the Lord had to do to Peter when he sinned was he looked at it. And Peter's heart was broken. Do tell me what it takes to break your heart. And I'll tell you what your Christian life is like. All it took was a look from Peter.
His heart was broken. It took a whole year for David. You see, he was like a horse or a mule. It took a whole year of his bones groaning within him and no place to move. Our time's gone. Let me just say that. Beware of here. Repentance. Just as there is a high cost to sin, friends, it's the most expensive thing in the world. There's a high cost to sin. There's a high cost to repentance. But thank God there is such a thing as genuine restoration.
And David knew the reality of it. Blessed is the man whose acquiescence are forgiven and whose sin is covered. The Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not infuse sins. Last night before I went to death, I just turned again to the forty-fifth chapter of Genesis and read it. Genesis forty-five deals with Joseph, whom his brothers threw in a pit, lifted him out of the pit, and sold him as a slave to the Ishmaelites, and then deceived their father that he was dead. But God made him the ruler of Egypt.
And God in providence brought the brothers of Joseph to Egypt. The time came when Joseph revealed himself to his brothers. You have that in Genesis forty-five. And Joseph said, I want everybody out of my presence except just my brothers. I want to be alone than my brothers. This is not for someone else, but listen to it. And Joseph here is a picture of the Lord Jesus in a genuine way. And Joseph looks at his brothers and he says, I'm your brother Joseph. I'm the one you sold into Egypt.
And his brothers were thrown. You can't have repentance, friends, without a broken heart. Amen. That day the hearts of the brothers of Joseph were broken over what they did. But you know that Joseph forgave his brethren. There was genuine restoration, and he said to his brothers, Go back to the land of Canaan and tell my father of all my glory in the land of Egypt. In the closed of the fifty-first Psalm David turns to God he says build the walls of Zion build the walls of Zion I'm going to be a testimony for you I'm going to declare your glory and you know friends there's a there's a hymn that isn't in our hymn book oh I wish it was one of my favorites the second stanza says you know it's the one we're marching to Zion That word Zion has a big meaning to me because I've studied it through scripture.
In the second stanza that hymn, the hills of Zion yield a thousand sacred sweets before we reach the heavenly field or walk the golden street. Beloved, there are things that we can enjoy here before we ever get to heaven. As believers in Jesus Christ, It is genuine repentance before a holy God. Same as it's Christ, friends, in its awfully hard. Repentance as it's Christ, and we must be willing to pay it, to enjoy the blessedness of genuine restoration.
May God enable us all to look into the face of the Lord and say, Lord, created me a clean heart. If there's ever anything we need, and I believe that the Lord in his message to the church, the church is in Asia Minor, as he calls upon them to repent, has a meaning to us today. And God says to us, I always want you to come back. Come back. come back for I want you to teach transgressors my way and I want the sinners to be converted unto me and I use clean vessels the high cost of repentance let's pray together and now we pray to our God and Father that you'll take this word and search our heart deliver us oh God our God of our salvation from cheap confession, cheap repentance, and help us as thy children to know the blessedness of genuine forgiveness for Jesus' sake.
Amen. Let's sing together hymn number three hundred sixty-nine, the first and last in our hymn book. A grand old hymn. Rock of ages cleft for me. Let me hide myself in thee. Let the water and the blood from thy ribbon side which flows be of sin the double cure. Save from wrath and make me cure. Let's stand together as Rick leads us shall we.