Repentance after Conversion
(No. 2419)
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S DAY, JUNE 30, 1895.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JUNE
12, 1887.
"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite
heart, O God, You will not despise." Psalm 51:17.
THE French have a phrase which signifies in English, "assisting at a
service." A person who has been present at some grand function of the
church speaks of himself as having "assisted" at the service. I want
that many of us should literally carry out that expression just now. I
do not want so much to preach as to lead you in the offering of
sacrifices. Somebody says, perhaps, "But I have no bullock, no lamb."
No, but you have a heart–and it is a broken and a contrite heart that
I propose that we should present to God! I will not invite those of you
to do so who have never experienced the working of Divine Grace within
your souls. I trust that you will be led to do so by the Spirit of God,
but I cannot, just now, invite you to offer that sacrifice, for my
appeal is to those who have tasted that the Lord is gracious, to those
who have been restored from spiritual death, to those who are debtors
to Free Grace and dying love. It is to them I speak and I invite and
entreat them to accompany us while we present to God the sacrifices
which He will not despise–the sacrifices of a broken spirit and a
contrite heart.
I would have you specially notice that in this Psalm David puts the
sacrifice in its right position–and I would put it in the same
position. You observe that he has, first of all, sought pardon for his
sin and he has found it. He has prayed, "Purge me with hyssop, and I
shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." His sin,
then, is forgiven. He has, next, asked for a restoration of
purity–"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit
within me.'' That, also, has been done. I will suppose it, my dear
Friend, to have been done in your case, also–that you have been
renewed in the spirit of your mind by the Grace of God.
Then, next, joy has also been restored to David, for he says, "Restore
unto me the joy of Your salvation," so that it is not a question with
him as to whether he is saved or not–he is a man who is saved and
living in the assurance of salvation! Sin is pardoned and the impurity
engendered by grievous transgression has become put away. He has peace
with God–he is the man who brings the sacrifice. He is the man who
presents to God a broken heart and a contrite spirit. More than that,
he has become a preacher–his gratitude to God has led him to be useful
to others, as he says in the 13th verse, "Then will I teach
transgressors Your ways; and sinners shall be converted unto You." And
even more than that, he has gone from the pulpit to the choir–he has
become a singer and he sings a sweet song of thankfulness to the great
God who has saved him! Now, this is the man whose lips the Lord has
opened and whose mouth is showing forth God's praise! This is the man
who says, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a
contrite heart, O God, You will not despise."
Perhaps you have the notion that repentance is a thing that happens at
the commencement of the spiritual life and has to be gotten through as
one undergoes a certain operation–and that is an end of it. If so, you
are greatly mistaken! Repentance lives as long as faith. Towards faith
I might almost call it a Siamese twin. We shall need to believe and to
repent as long as we live! Perhaps, also, you have the idea that
repentance is a bitter thing. It is sometimes bitter–"They shall be in
bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn,"
but that is not the kind of repentance that I am talking of, now.
Surely that bitterness is past, it was all over long ago. But this is a
sweet bitterness which attends faith as long as we live–and becomes a
source of tender joy!
I do not know whether I shall quite convey my meaning to you, but I can
assure you that the greatest joy I have ever known has not been when I
have laughed, but when I have cried. The most intense happiness I have
ever felt has not been when I have been exhilarated and full of
spirits, but when I have leaned very low on the bosom of God and felt
it so sweet to be so low that one could scarcely be lower and yet did
not wish to be any higher! I quite agree with Mr. Rowland Hill, who
said he supposed that there could be no tears of repentance in Heaven
and that would be the only thing that he could almost regret, for sweet
Sister Repentance is such charming company that we shall regret to part
with her even at the gates of pearl. As we may have to part with her,
there, I want us to keep her company all the time this service lasts!
And my objective at this time is to ask you to bring to God, while we
are here in this House of Prayer, the sacrifices of a broken and a
contrite spirit. I want you to indulge yourselves in this most rare and
exquisite delight of sorrow at the feet of Jesus–not sorrow for
unpardoned sin, but sorrow for pardoned sin, sorrow for that which is
done with, sorrow for that which is forgiven, sorrow for that which
will never condemn you–for it was laid on Christ long ago and is put
away forever! It is this sweet sorrow that I want you to indulge. Up
with the sluices, then, Brothers and Sisters, and let these sacred
streams of sorrow flow forth!
I. And, first, LET US CONSIDER WHAT THIS SACRIFICE IS. It is a broken
spirit, a broken and a contrite heart. If you and I have a broken
spirit, all idea of our own importance is gone. What is the use of a
broken heart? Why, much the same as the use of a broken pot, or a
broken jug, or a broken bottle! Men throw it on the dunghill! Hence
David says, "A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not
despise,'' as if he felt that everybody else would despise it. Now, do
you feel that you are of no importance? Though you know that you are a
child of God, do you feel that you would not give a penny for yourself?
You would not wish to claim the first place. The rear rank suits you
best and you wonder that you are in the Lord's army in any rank at all.
Oh, Brothers and Sisters, I believe that the more God uses us, the less
we shall think of ourselves, and the more He fills us with His Spirit,
the more will our own spirit sink within us in utter amazement that He
should ever make use of such broken vessels as we are! Well now,
indulge that feeling of nothingness and unimportance! Not only indulge
it as a feeling, but go and act upon it! And be you in the midst of
your Brothers and Sisters less than the least–humble yourselves in
wonder that God should permit your name to stand on the roll of His
elect at all. Admire the Grace of God to you and marvel at it in deep
humiliation of spirit. That is part of the sacrifice that God will not
despise!
Next, if you and I have a broken and a contrite heart, it means that
frivolity and trifling have gone from us. There are some who are always
trifling with spiritual things, but he who gets a broken heart has done
with that sort of spirit. A broken heart is serious, solemn and in
earnest. A broken heart never tries to play any tricks with God and
never shuffles texts as though even Scripture, itself, were meant only
to be an opportunity for testing our wit. A broken spirit is tender,
serious, weighed down with solemn considerations. Indulge that spirit,
now–be solemn before God, grasp eternal things, let slip these
shadows–what are they worth? But set your soul on things Divine and
everlasting. Pursue that vein of thought and so bring before God a
broken and a contrite spirit!
Further, a broken spirit is one out of which hypocrisy has gone. That
vessel, whole and sealed up, may contain the most precious oil of
roses, or it may contain the foulest filth–I know not what is in it.
But break it and you will soon see! There is no hypocrisy about a
broken heart. Oh, Brothers and Sisters, be before men what you are
before God! Seem to be what you really are. Make no pretences. I am
afraid that we are all hypocrites in a measure–we both pray and preach
above our own actual experience full often–and we, perhaps, think that
we have more faith than we actually have and more love than we have
ever known. The Lord make us to have a broken heart that is revealed by
being broken! You know, now, what was in that pot, for there it lies,
broken to shivers. Its contents are no longer concealed, they have all
run out. Now, pour out your hearts before God as you sit there in your
pews, and let Him see what He really does see–all that is in your
soul–for in your hidden parts He would have you to know wisdom. Reveal
yourselves unto yourselves and so reveal yourselves unto your God!
Once more, a broken spirit signifies that all the secrets and essences
of the spirit have flowed out. You remember what happened when that
holy woman broke the alabaster box? We read that "the house was filled
with the odor of the ointment." A broken heart cannot keep secrets! Now
is all revealed. Now its essence goes forth. Far too much of our
praying and of our worship is like closed-up boxes–you cannot tell
what is in them. But it is not so with broken hearts! When broken
hearts sing, they sing! When broken hearts groan, they groan! Broken
hearts never play at repenting, nor play at believing. There is much of
religion, nowadays, that is very superficial, it is all on the surface.
A very small quantity of Gospel paint, with just a little varnish of
profession, will go a very long way, and look very bright. But broken
hearts are not like that–with broken hearts the hymn is a real hymn,
the prayer is a real prayer, the hearing of sermons is earnest
work–and the preaching of them is the hardest work of all!
Oh, what a mercy it would be if some of you were broken all to pieces!
There are many flowers that will never yield their perfume till they
are bruised. Even the generous grape lets not its juice flow forth till
it is trodden under foot of men. Breaking and bruising are fit
treatment for the nature of men, especially for the new nature. When
God has put sweetness into our hearts, it is then that breaking
develops the sweetness. Oh, to worship God in spirit and in truth! One
has well said, "No one ever worshipped God with his whole heart unless
he worshipped him with a broken heart. And there never was a heart that
was truly broken that did not, thereby, become a whole heart." The
divided heart is not broken, but the broken heart is never divided. I
know that I am talking in riddles, but the wise will understand me. To
get unity of spirit, there must be contrition and brokenness of heart.
II. Now, in the second place, LET US OFFER THE SACRIFICE.
I have told you a little of what the sacrifice means, now we will try,
as God shall help us, to bear our brokenness of heart before the Lord.
Come, my Brothers and Sisters, let us mourn for awhile on account of
our past sin. We will do so from several points of view.
First, let us deeply regret that we have sinned against so good a God.
While I regarded God as a tyrant, I thought sin a trifle. But when I
knew Him to be my Father, then I mourned that I could ever have kicked
against Him. When I thought that God was hard, I found it easy to sin.
But when I found God so kind, so good, so overflowing with compassion,
I smote upon my breast to think that I could have rebelled against One
who loved me so and sought my good. Will you not now think of the
goodness of God, Brothers and Sisters, and shall it not lead you to
repentance? Shall we not feel within our hearts a burning indignation
against sin because it is committed against so holy, so good, so
glorious a Being as the infinitely blessed God?
Let me help you, again, and may the arrow pierce your very hearts this
time! Let us mourn to think that we have offended against so excellent
and admirable a Law. If the Law of God were like the laws of men, it
might sometimes be a virtue to break it! But where a Law is so
balanced, so perfect, oh, how could we have run contrary to it?
Brothers and Sisters, the Law of God, when it says to us, "You shall
not," only sets up a danger signal to tell us where it is injurious to
go. And when the Law says, "You shall," it does but lift up a kindly
hand to point out to us the best and safest path. There is nothing in
the Law of God that will rob you of happiness–it only denies you that
which would cost you sorrow! We know that it is so and, therefore, we
stand here and bow our head, and mourn that we should have been so
foolish as to transgress, so willful and suicidally wicked as to do
that evil thing which God hates and which so grievously injures us! We
have nursed vipers when we have nursed sins! We have hatched the
cockatrice's egg when we have thought upon iniquity! Therefore let us
be truly sorry for our sin and for our folly.
You remember that I am talking to those of you who are saved, to those
of you whose sins are forgiven. In my heart, I think that I can hear
some others say, "Will you not let us join with you in repenting though
we are not pardoned?" Bless your hearts, yes! God help you to join with
us and if you do, you will find pardon, too, for pardon comes in this
way! A broken heart can never long be divided from the broken Savior.
You shall have peace with Him when you are at war with sin. But now I
am especially inviting the people of God to sweetly grieve in this
House of Prayer and offer the sacrifice of a contrite heart while they
remember that they have sinned against God's perfect Law.
More than that–and this is a very tender point–let us grieve that we
have sinned against a Savior's love. I like that verse we sang just
now–
"'Tis I have thus ungrateful been, Yet, Jesus, pity take! Oh, spare and
pardon me, my Lord, For Your sweet mercy's sake!"
The greatest crime that was ever committed against high Heaven was that
crime of deicide when men nailed the Son of God to the Cross and put
Him to death as a criminal! Where are the wretches that did this awful
deed? They are here–I will not say that they are before us, for each
of us harbors one of them within his bosom. "'Tis I"–"'Tis I have thus
ungrateful been." How can I speak to you thus? Well, perhaps, all the
better, because from my very heart I ask that we may stand together at
the foot of the Cross and count the purple drops and say, "These have
washed away my sins, yet I helped to spill them. Those hands, those
feet, have saved me, yet I nailed them there. That opened side is the
refuge of my guilty spirit, yet I made that fearful gash by my sin. It
was my sin that slew my Savior!"
O sin, you thrice accursed thing, away with you! Away with you! Come,
let us be filled with mournful joy, with pleasurable sorrow, while we
sit beneath the bloody tree and see what sin has done–and yet see how
sin, itself, has been undone by Him who died upon the Cross on Calvary!
Beloved, the more you love your Lord, the more you will hate sin. If
you often sit at the table with Him and dip your hand into His dish. If
you lean your head upon His bosom with the blessed John. If you are
favored and indulged with the choicest brotherliness towards the
Well-Beloved, I know that you will often find occasion to seek a quiet
place where you may shed tears of bitter regret that you should ever
have sinned against such a Savior as Jesus!
Let me help you, again, however, while I remind you, Beloved, of our
sins against the holy Spirit. Oh, what do we not owe to the Holy
Spirit? I speak to you who know Him. It is the Holy Spirit who
quickened you, the Holy Spirit who convinced you of sin, the Holy
Spirit who comforted you! And oh, how sweetly does that Divine
Comforter still comfort! Yet we resisted Him and grieved Him. Do you
not remember, in your youthful days, how you strangled your
convictions, how you held down conscience and would not let it reprove
you? That blessed Spirit, whom we vexed and spurned, might have left us
and gone His way, never to strive with us again, but He loved us so
that He came and took up His abode with us and now He dwells in us!
Within the narrow cell of our poor heart He has condescended to find a
temple for His perpetual indwelling. O my Soul, how could you ever
grieve Him? How could you ever have resisted that best and most tender
Friend? I do not ask you to torture yourselves, but I do invite you,
Beloved, to now indulge the joyful grief of sweet heavenly penitence as
you remember the love of the Spirit.
Let us go a step further and set our sin in the light of God's
Countenance. I speak to you, Beloved, who are God's elect. He loved you
from before the foundation of the world and yet you have sinned against
Him. He chose you from among men, of His own Sovereign Grace, and
ordained you to belong to Christ, and gave you to Jesus to be His
forever! Alas, you knew it not, and you continued to sin against this
distinguishing and discriminating Grace! Oh, that even the elect of God
could have done this! See that you crucify the sin that suffered you to
act so shamefully. Then in due time you were redeemed. For you,
Beloved, Jesus shed His precious blood! He shed it not for all men, but
with a special view to the redemption of His elect. Christ loved the
Church and gave Himself for it. He has redeemed us from among men! We
have been the object of that special and peculiar redemption and yet
against that dear Christ, who loved us, and gave Himself for us, we
rebelled and transgressed! Ordained to be of the blood royal of Heaven,
and yet a rebel! Ordained on earth to have the love of God within our
spirit and, in Heaven, to behold His face forever–ordained by Divine
decree to this high destiny–and yet for many a year a rebel, a willful
rebel against such wondrous love as this! I do not know what to say to
myself! I despise myself, I loathe myself, that I should thus have
acted against such extraordinary love!
Then remember, also, that you are God's child, adopted into His family,
His twice-born, Divinely regenerated. You are an heir of God, a joint
heir with Jesus Christ. And yet–and yet you have acted so sinfully! O
God, You have forgiven Your servants but we have never forgiven
ourselves! And we never mean to–we shall always mourn, even in our joy
for pardoned guilt, that we, the favorites of Heaven, should have so
grieved the Lord!
Go a little further. I want you to set sin in the light of your
marvelous experiences. Oh, there are some of us who, without boasting,
can tell of answered prayer when we have come back from the top of
Carmel and we have cried, "I have won the day!" And yet to us who have
been privileged, thus, to have power with God, it was not always so.
Perhaps the very lips that now prevail in prayer were once habituated
to blasphemy. Oh, mourn, my Brother, if it were so! Can you ever stop
mourning? When John Newton wrote the Cardiphonia, or, Voice of the
Heart–when he left us that choice treasure–I am sure that he must
often and often have smitten upon his breast and grieved over the
thought that he was once, in Africa, a blasphemer and everything that
was foul and bad!
Oh yes, wonders of Grace have been ours! Wonders of Grace! Wonders of
Grace! We have tasted the wines on the lees well refined–yet once we
drank of the wine of the clusters of Sodom and Gomorrah! What has Grace
not done for us, Brothers and Sisters? You and I have been in the
King's banqueting house and His banner of love has waved over us! And
our Beloved has caught us away, "from the top of Amana, from the lions'
dens, from the mountains of the leopards," and manifested His love to
us in the secret places where no eye saw except our own and His. There
did He reveal to us His great love! Yet we were the very ones who once
despised Him, broke His Sabbaths, refused to read His Word, neglected
prayer, perhaps ridiculed holy things! We were proud, covetous,
unholy–but we are washed, we are sanctified. Oh, let us sit here and
sweetly repent, and present to our God the sacrifices of a broken and
contrite spirit!
Besides, dear Friends, think of the injury you have done to others by
your example. What a powerful preacher a mother is to her boy! What an
influential preacher is a father to his son! What a mighty preacher one
workmen may be to another, especially if he is a man of stronger mind
than his fellows! Whatever any of us do, we are sure to have some who
will copy us–it cannot be avoided. You are all writing copies every
day, even though you are not schoolmasters and there are some who will
learn either bad or good writing from you, for they will copy your
handwriting. I mean, that they will imitate what they see in you. In
years to come, when you have forgotten what you did, some may be
following your former example. I would urge young men–and I am glad to
see a great many of them present–to pray that they may begin life in
such a way that they may not have much back reckoning.
Suppose a man to be converted after his children are born. If those
children have seen the father do wrong, they will, perhaps, remember
the evil better than the good example of their converted father. When
your children have once left your roof, what opportunities of
influencing them aright you have lost! Though you may, yourselves, be
saved by faith in Christ, yet you cannot call back the boys and the
girls from those sinful ways into which you led them in the days of
your ungodliness! This thought has a sharp sting in it for any who, by
word or by example, have taught others to do that which is evil in the
sight of the Lord. If this is your case, Beloved, while you praise God
that He has forgiven your sin, yet mourn that you ever led any astray
by your wrongdoing!
If that is not enough, I want to lead you a little further and bid you
think of all the opportunities that we lose whenever we fall into sin.
I repent of sin unfeignedly because it has hindered my progress. I am
now speaking only to the people of God, mark you. If any of you sinners
want to creep in among them, you may, but I am especially addressing
them. There is one here who, not long ago, was a pilgrim on the road to
the Celestial City and he went part of the way up the Hill Difficulty,
climbing splendidly on his hands and knees. He made the best of his way
up, but it came to pass that when he had gone about half-way up the
hill, he found a little arbor by the roadside. It was built there by
the Lord of the Way that he might rest himself a little in it, and then
go on his way. But this Brother sat down in the arbor and he sat on
till he went to sleep. And he slept there, I do not know how long. Just
lately he has been awakened and he has gone on his way, again, climbing
up, but he has discovered that he has lost the roll that he used to
carry in his bosom.
It was a roll that he had when first he started at the head of the Way
and he meant to present it to the Lord of the Celestial City when he
came to his journey's end. But he has lost his roll. You know what Mr.
Bunyan says of this matter. It was getting late, but Christian had lost
his roll, so he had to go back, and he wisely went back to the place
where he had fallen asleep–all the way moaning and sighing and crying
to himself, "I have lost my evidences, I have lost may roll. Where
shall I find it?" He was so glad when he looked under the bench, to see
the roll there. I guarantee you that he quickly picked it up, put it in
his bosom! But then, you see, he had to go over that part of the road
three times. If he had not lost his roll and had to go back, he might,
by that time, have been much further on the road. There were lions in
that region and that was ugly for him. If he had got into the House
Beautiful earlier in the day, he would not have suffered the fears he
now had. So he went along in a very sad state of mind and all because
of that careless sleeping in the arbor. Oh, what some of you might have
been if it had not been for your sins since conversion! What a preacher
I might have been! What workers in the Sunday school you might have
been! Oh, what winners of souls you might have become by this time! But
you have been asleep and had to go back, perhaps, and so you have
missed many opportunities of serving Christ.
Let us sit and think this matter over and begin to say, "Lord, we
present to You a broken and contrite heart, mourning and lamenting, for
if we are straitened, we are straitened in ourselves, not in You. If we
are mourning in darkness, we, ourselves, made the darkness. If we are
desponding, we have, in a large measure, created the despondency. Lord,
we grieve and sorrow for all this." Since I have been in this house,
tonight, I have heard of a dear Brother, whose prayers I remember among
the first I heard when I came to be pastor of this Church. He passed
away, today, and has gone to his reward, an old man and full of years.
That Brother is where you and I will be very soon! Do not talk about
years–they go so quickly and our friends pass away quickly, too.
Just the other day a man of God sat at his table writing. He had dipped
his pen in the ink, but he never laid it on the paper, for he fell
asleep, then and there, and he was gone Home. We, too, shall soon pass
away. "Perhaps in a few days I shall be among the angels"–say that to
yourself, my Brother. Perhaps in a few weeks I shall behold the face of
Him I
love"–say that, my Sister. It will come true! Perhaps in a few
years–no, drop the, "perhaps," and say–"Certainly, within a few
years, I shall behold the Beatific Vision."–
"Father I long, I faint to see
The place of Your abode."
I see myself walking over that street of gold that shines like glass!
Earthly gold is dull, you cannot see into it. If you could, you would
see the tears of the oppressed and, sometimes, the blood of crushed men
in it. But the gold of Heaven is good and you can see into it, as you
could into a sea of glass. I think I am walking there. I hardly know
myself and there I meet one and another of you whom I knew, here, and
we go together down that golden street and look in at the many
mansions, from which come out many to welcome us, and we thread our way
into the center. There is no temple there, no tabernacle of worship
there, but we get into the center and we stand upon the glassy sea into
which all the streets seem to run. And as we look around, we see angels
and elders bowing there before the Throne of the Infinite Majesty, and
we are there and we bow with them. And when we lift up our eyes to that
Light, we sing, "Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in
His own blood, and has made us kings and priests unto God and His
Father; to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever!"
Now I want you to think of your sins in the light of that Glory. Oh,
how could those who are predestinated to these heavenly seats ever have
wandered into sin? What? Was it so that we, who were born to behold the
face of God, ever loved the theater and all its abominations? What? Did
we, who were ordained to be peers with cherubim and seraphim, ever love
the racetrack and all its gambling? What? Were we, whom God has made to
be conformed to the image of His firstborn Son, ever seen to be drunk
and staggering through the streets, defiled with unchastity, or
polluted with gluttony, or guilty of covetousness, or cursed with
pride? What? We whom the Lord has loved with an everlasting love and
without whom Christ, Himself, will not be content to reign in Heaven,
groveling in iniquity?
Oh, I think these questions must have helped to make sin seem
contemptible and loathsome! I point at it the finger of scorn! O dear
children of God, scorn your sins, lament your sins, weep over your
sins! Indulge that feeling and God will accept it when it is mixed with
faith in His dear Son, for "the sacrifices of God," that is, all sorts
of sacrifices put together–sin-offerings, burnt offerings,
peace-offerings, scapegoats and all together–"the sacrifices of God
are a broken spirit." One broken spirit is worth them all! "A broken
and a contrite heart"–though there is but one such–"O God, You will
not despise."
God bless you, Beloved, for Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM51.
This is a portion of Scripture which can never be read too often. If
any among us have never found mercy, let them use this Psalm as their
own personal prayer–while those who have found mercy can read between
the lines and read the sweetness of pardon into the bitterness of
sorrow for sin! This Psalm was written by David when Nathan came to him
after his great sin with Bathsheba. He needed Nathan to come to him to
rebuke him. If David had not been in a very sad state of heart, he
would not have fallen into the sin. It was that state of heart which
left him so hardened, so obdurate, that he needed Nathan pointedly to
say to him, "You are the man." After that, he wrote and prayed this
truly penitential Psalm.
Verse 1. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness.
He used to talk about being God's servant, but he says nothing about
that, now. He used to speak of God's great love to him, but he cannot
realize that, now. Yet he appeals to God for mercy–"Have mercy upon
me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness."
1. According unto the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my
transgressions. "There they are, they stare me in the face; nobody but
You can blot them out; do it, Lord, for Your sweet mercy's sake. Blot
them out of existence and out of memory. And when You have blotted them
from Your Book of Remembrance, then blot them from me, too."
2. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. "If
washing will not do, use fire, use blood, use anything, but cleanse me
from my sin."
3. For I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is always before me.
"Lord, help me. Here is my sin–I cannot shut my eyes to it. I dare not
deny it, or excuse it. I make a clean breast of it. I acknowledge my
transgressions and my sin is always before me."
4. Against You, You only, have I sinned and done this evil in Your
sight. "I have sinned against others, but this is the foulness of the
blot, the venom of the sting, that I have sinned against my God."
4, 5. That You might be justified when You speak, and be clear when You
judge. Behold, I was shaped in iniquity and in sin did my mother
conceive me. "Behold, for this is a wonder, and I look at it and I
mourn over it. Behold, before I had a shape, I was out of shape! Before
I saw anything, still there was sin antecedent to my very existence."
6. Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part
You shall make me to know wisdom. "But, alas, Lord, what You desire is
not there. In my inward part I find falsehood! In my hidden part, I
find folly! Lord, what You desire, You must also bestow, or else I
shall never have it! Oh, hear Your servant's supplication!"
7. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be
whiter than snow. This is delightful pleading on David's part. He had
seen the priest take the sprigs of hyssop, dip them in the blood and
then sprinkle the leper. So his prayer is, "Lord, give me purification
through the Atonement. 'Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.'"
It requires strong faith, when under a deep sense of sin, to be quite
sure that God can put the sin away. It is a grand thing to be able to
say, "Wash me, foul as I am, wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."
8. Make me to hear joy and gladness. "Lord, I have heard nothing but
groans, lately, and I have made no sound but sighs–'Make me to hear
joy and gladness.'"
8. That the bones which You have broken may rejoice. When God makes us
feel the weight of sin, it is a bone-breaking operation. He seems to
strike as though He would kill–and only He that thus strikes can
afterwards heal. Then He makes each fragment of the bone to sing and
praise Him!
9. Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. You see
that the Psalmist has many names for sin, for evil, like a great rogue,
has many aliases. So it is sometimes sin. Sometimes it is
transgression, passing over the line of right. And sometimes it is
inequity, or a departure from perfect equity. "Call it by whatever name
it may be called, Lord, let me be rid of it. 'Hide Your face from my
sins and blot out all my iniquities.'"
10. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within
me. "My Creator, I am spoiled. Come and make me over again. My heart
has grown foul. You who did make me, clean me." The watchmaker best
cleans the watch that he made. "Create in me a clean heart, O my
Creator, and renew a right spirit within me."
11. Cast me not away from Your Presence. "I have acted as if You were
not present, but, oh, do not fling me away! Do not take Your Presence
away from me."
11. 12. And take not Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy
of Your salvation. "Once I was so happy. Oh, give me back my joy!"
12. And uphold me with Your free Spirit. "I have fallen foully; let me
not fall again. Henceforth, I cannot trust myself; You uphold me. I
have been free to sin. Lord, send me a freer spirit, that I may be free
to follow after righteousness."
13. Then will I teach transgressors Your ways. He would turn preacher
if God would but bless him! He would tell others what great things God
had done for him.
13. And sinners shall be converted unto You. He felt sure that if he
once told his tale of love, others would be melted and would turn to
God–and no doubt it was the case.
14. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, God of my salvation, and
my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness. "Once cleanse me from
my sin and I will sing Your praises forever! And I will sing earnestly,
too–'My tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness.'"
15. O Lord, open You my lips. He felt as if he was going too fast when
he promised to speak and to sing, so he prayed, "O Lord, open You my
lips"–
15. And my mouth shall show forth Your praise. When good men have had a
fall, they walk very tenderly afterwards. Once put them on their legs
and they are very careful how they move. They are afraid to speak
except as God opens their lips.
16. For You desire not sacrifice; else would I give it. David
remembered that under the Law there was no sacrifice appointed for the
expiation of adultery. There were some sins that were left out of the
catalog, and this was one of them.
16, 17. You delight not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a
broken spirit. Even for the man who has committed the most atrocious
crimes, there is still acceptance if he brings God the sacrifice of a
broken spirit!
17, 18. A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. Do
good in Your good pleasure unto Zion: build, You, the walls of
Jerusalem. Now that he feels himself forgiven, he begins to pray for
the good estate of the Church of God and the Lord's people everywhere!
We cannot do that when sin is breaking our bones–but when we get peace
and rest, then the first instinct of the newborn life is to pray for
God's Kingdom–"Do good in Your good pleasure unto Zion: build, You,
the walls of Jerusalem."
19. Then shall You be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness,
with burnt offering and whole burnt offering then shall they offer
bullocks upon Your altar.