Psalm 51:10-14
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
so that sinners will turn back to you.
14 Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
you who are God my Savior,
and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
Reflect
I heard a funny story about a college boy who came home from school one weekend. He said to his mother, “Mom, some of the guys in the dorm went in together and purchased a pet goat for the dormitory.”
The college boy’s mother said, “How disgusting, Son! That’s awful. Won’t the smell be offensive?”
The college boy said, “Ah, the goat will get used to it.”
I suppose it is true that at times our sin can get so disgusting that even we do not recognize how bad things have spiraled out of control. Over the past couple of days, we have been looking at how King David became aware of the seriousness of his sin. He thought he had done a pretty good job of covering up. But the Lord was displeased with what David had done, and God made certain that it would not go unnoticed.
Heaven help the believer who thinks he/she can sin and fool God. Have you ever heard someone say, “You have no right to judge me. That’s God’s job. You let him take care of that.” There is a lot of truth in those statements. No one can adequately judge another person. We are never completely partial like God is. Either we are too harsh or we are too lenient; hence, the reason that judgment is better left to God. But be not mistaken, God will judge sin, and he will judge it swiftly and efficiently—often times more severely than another human will. And when the judgment comes from God, it will be just. Here’s the best part: when judgment comes from God, it will include sufficient measures of grace needed for the given situation. God knows what he is doing when he passes judgment on those he loves and cares for.
For all that David sinned and was judged for, David received even greater grace. Why did David receive such grace? It is because David finally submitted himself to the chastisement of God, and what he ultimately received was a forgiveness and restoration that he probably did not think was possible. We will see later that David probably believed he would be forgiven at some point, but probably not to the degree he was. God always gives more than we thought possible. But David also understood that there were prerequisites to forgiveness and restoration. We looked at the first prerequisite yesterday which is a despair that requests forgiveness. David finally got desperate enough to deal with his sin. But here is the second prerequisite:
Prerequisite Two: There must be a disgust that requires change
David finally understood that real repentance not only comes to despair, but it leads to disgust. Look back at Psalm 51:7-8, and you’ll see that here is a man who is saying, “I’ve lost the joy of it all” (paraphrase). He had not lost his relationship with God in a salvation sense. But he had lost his fellowship with God. He had lost the joy of his salvation. You see, God put a song in David’s heart, but because of David’s sin, that sin made an absolute monotone out of his life. He could not hear or perform any of the music anymore. He said, “Let the bones which you have crushed rejoice.” He is saying, “God, I ache for this sin; it’s as if my bones are broken” (paraphrase).
If anything is obvious to me in this Psalm, it is that David was thoroughly disgusted with his life of sin. He had enough. He is repulsed by it. A deeper look will reveal what David is disgusted by and what David calls out to God for.
David cries out for a change from filth to fitness
David was sick and tired of being sick and tired. He was not only desperate, but he was disgusted about his sin. He realized that if the change was ever going to take place, it would have two steps: a purging by God’s own cleansing agents and a perceiving of God’s wonders anew.
It is possible that David knew that at some point he might be clean again. I think he believed that could happen, and he believed God by faith or else he would not have asked for forgiveness. If you do not believe forgiveness is possible, then there is no need to ask for it. But somehow, by faith, God had revealed to David the idea that forgiveness is possible. That is proven by the fact that David requested forgiveness. Somehow God had revealed to David that He had the powerful cleansing agent that could restore him to fellowship with God again.
It is true that God has the cleansing agent that we need, and that agent is the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the only hope we have that can make us clean. Even though David and the prophets of old did not know all that we now know, God allowed them to see that he had the power to wipe away all sin. That is why Isaiah the prophet said, “‘Come now, let us settle the matter,’ says the Lord. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool’” (Isaiah 1:18).
God can take the dirt and filth from our lives and cleanse us just like he with David, but only because David, in his desperation and his disgust, cried out for God for a change from filth to fitness.
Look at Verses 10 and following. David cries out for a change from death to life
David is saying, “God, I know what is more wrong than what I have done. It is the heart which desired to sin. God, my heart is desperately wicked. It is deceitful before you. Lord, create in me a clean heart” (paraphrase).
We experience forgiveness and restoration at salvation when we first meet Jesus and he gives us a new heart. Then we walk in repentance so that we might not have our heart clogged up with unconfessed sin. And David was crying, “God, that new heart that you gave me when first I believed, unplug the arteries. God, give the life back to it. Lord, change me from within” (paraphrase).
At the beginning of each new year, we like to talk about New Year’s resolutions. Maybe you have made them. Did they work? If you are like me, sometimes they do and sometimes they do not. Perhaps you have tried to change your life. You have tried to reconstruct your life. You have tried to get rid of bad habits and take on good habits and you have never yet succeeded. Why, you even thought that becoming religious and joining a church might fix the problem. Perhaps there is still something in your life that you cannot fix and you have never had victory over. Victory comes when we are desperate about our sin, disgusted with our sin and we choose to walk through the middle of the valley of repentance and stop avoiding it.
To recap, we have said that there are two unavoidable prerequisites to forgiveness and restoration: there must be a despair that requests forgiveness and there must be a disgust that requires change. Tomorrow we will look at the third prerequisite, which is the most positive and encouraging one.
Respond
Read David’s story in 2 Samuel 11. The last verse of that chapter says, “But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.” If this was the sort of thing that other kings could have done and nothing be said about it, why did God hold David to a higher standard?
In 2 Samuel 11, what is David’s attitude like and how does that differ from his attitude in Psalm 51? What brought about the change?
Spend some time with the Lord today and ask him to show you if there is anything in your life that is displeasing to him.