Psalm 51
For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
you taught me wisdom in that secret place.
and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
you taught me wisdom in that secret place.
7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
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.
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.
15 Open my lips, Lord,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart
you, God, will not despise.
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.
15 Open my lips, Lord,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart
you, God, will not despise.
18 May it please you to prosper Zion,
to build up the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous,
in burnt offerings offered whole;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.
to build up the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous,
in burnt offerings offered whole;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.
Psalm 51 is one of the 7 penitent Psalms. Also included in this are Psalms 6,32,38,102,130,and 143. This one, as spelled out at the beginning, is in response to David's "Thou art the man" confrontation of sin by Nathan the prophet. There are a lot of avenues to go down with this Psalm, but what jumps out at me are the eight consequences of sin and or 8 reasons why we should always do what God wants us to do.
1. Guilty conscience - vs.3 "My sin is always before me" Have you ever done something, or are in the midst of doing something that you know is wrong and your conscience is beating you up? How freeing to know that, "I have nothing to hide. I am completely innocent. Give me a lie detector test, check my urine, examine my texts or computer - you will find nothing." David was guilty, and even though he was forgiven, this sin plagued him the rest of his life. I feel it made him not stand up to Absolom, Shemei, and Joab, it made him pick Bathsheba as his main confidant, and if he didn't have a guilty conscience, why did he write so many penitent Psalms? I was just watching an episode of The Middle and the parents of the upcoming 8th grader are told that he can skip 8th grade and go straight to High School. The parents say "we had a meeting with your principal today..." and the son interrupts and says, "I can explain!" That is a guilty conscience. Is there anything you have done that you hope people don't find out about?
2. Loss of joy and gladness - vs 8a "Let me hear joy and gladness" Ever have a fight with your spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend, and it just ruins your day? Any laughter is fake laughter. It's impossible to be happy or have fun because there is this elephant in every room. You just have to make things right before you can truly have fun. You may think sin is going to make you happy but it does just the opposite; it steals your joy and gladness. Why do you think there is so much depression and psychotherapy in the world? This leads to #3...
3.Physical effects - vs 8b "let the bones you have crushed rejoice." I was once chaperoning at a youth mission trip and after the evening service I was called to see a boy who was lying on the steps and was having a hard time breathing or moving. It appeared to me he was hyperventilating and after a while of sitting with him and talking, he let me know that he had been spending a lot of time on the internet looking at pornography. The guilt of this sin had put him in an apoplectic state. Is the weight of your sin crushing you? Confess it and run away from it.
4. Separation from God - vs.11 "Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me." David in another Psalm says, "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord cannot hear me." When you pray do you keep hearing the Lord say, "confess and stop doing that and then come to me". Or do you feel like there is a wall between you and Him? Do you feel like the words you are reading from the Bible have no life and aren't speaking to you? Sometimes I see these posts on Facebook of love-dovey stuff or PDA and I wonder, What is going on? Why are they trying so hard? What has (s)he done? I know a guy who cheated on his wife and 10 years later was struggling with a lack of intimacy. David, more than anyone had this intimacy with God that suddenly wasn't there and I bet it bothered him so much that he was relieved to be exposed.
5. Loss of your platform - vs.13 "Then I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you." It was like, "how can I witness and tell people about having a relationship with God, when I don't have a relationship." Or, "Why would anyone listen to me when I am such a hypocrite?" Jesus talked about it in the Sermon on the mount when He talked about salt losing its saltiness. It's good for nothing but to be walked on. Job lamented how everyone use to listen to him but when bad things happened to him which they assumed incorrectly to be sin related, no one listened to him anymore. I think of just over the last 5 years how many ministers of the gospel have lost their platform due to sin - Ergen Cainer, Bob Coe, Davichian, Chris Hill, Ted Haggard and the list goes on. It's not like God can never use you again, it's just in a role which Paul in 1Corinthians 12:23 calls "special modesty".
6. Discipline/punishment - vs. 14 "Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God" When David pronounced judgement on the person in Nathan's story, he was pronouncing capital punishment on himself. Yet God, in His mercy did not give David what he deserved yet there were reprecussions. The sword never parted from David's family, the child conceived from his sin with Bathsheba died, and David was not allowed to build the temple that he wanted so badly to do. Hebrews says, "Whom the Lord loves, He disciplines." He won't let you get away with sins because He loves you too much. I get caught every time, throughout my life, if I do something I shouldn't. I can't get away with anything and that's the way my "good good Father" intends it to be.
7. Affect on those around him - vs 18 "May it please you to prosper Zion, to build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous" It was like during the sin of David, sacrifices throughout Jerusalem were unacceptable. There was sin in the camp that needed to be addressed and until it was, everyone suffered. Dads, your sin affects your kids. They are observing you and will copy you. Or else, there is some kind of spiritual generational link to sinning sort of like alcoholism running in families. Or lets say your sin causes you to lose your job or marriage. Don't you think your kids would be affected by that? David's whole family was a mess after his sin.
8. Leads to more sin - "Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity." Ps. 32:4,5 The cover up. David sinned and tried to cover it up which eventually escalated to murder. One sin leads to another. One lie leads to another until you are caught in a web of deception. How much better to just confess, take the reprucussions and move on. Instead we delete texts, lock our phones with fingerprint encryption, plan alibis, avoid meeting up with certain people, etc. I wonder what would have happened if Bathsheba didn't get pregnant??
Anyway, the point is to run away from sin fast and hard. If you have sinned, confess it and get over it so that you can get back in that relationship with Jesus who is "faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1 John 1:9
2. Loss of joy and gladness - vs 8a "Let me hear joy and gladness" Ever have a fight with your spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend, and it just ruins your day? Any laughter is fake laughter. It's impossible to be happy or have fun because there is this elephant in every room. You just have to make things right before you can truly have fun. You may think sin is going to make you happy but it does just the opposite; it steals your joy and gladness. Why do you think there is so much depression and psychotherapy in the world? This leads to #3...
3.Physical effects - vs 8b "let the bones you have crushed rejoice." I was once chaperoning at a youth mission trip and after the evening service I was called to see a boy who was lying on the steps and was having a hard time breathing or moving. It appeared to me he was hyperventilating and after a while of sitting with him and talking, he let me know that he had been spending a lot of time on the internet looking at pornography. The guilt of this sin had put him in an apoplectic state. Is the weight of your sin crushing you? Confess it and run away from it.
4. Separation from God - vs.11 "Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me." David in another Psalm says, "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord cannot hear me." When you pray do you keep hearing the Lord say, "confess and stop doing that and then come to me". Or do you feel like there is a wall between you and Him? Do you feel like the words you are reading from the Bible have no life and aren't speaking to you? Sometimes I see these posts on Facebook of love-dovey stuff or PDA and I wonder, What is going on? Why are they trying so hard? What has (s)he done? I know a guy who cheated on his wife and 10 years later was struggling with a lack of intimacy. David, more than anyone had this intimacy with God that suddenly wasn't there and I bet it bothered him so much that he was relieved to be exposed.
5. Loss of your platform - vs.13 "Then I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you." It was like, "how can I witness and tell people about having a relationship with God, when I don't have a relationship." Or, "Why would anyone listen to me when I am such a hypocrite?" Jesus talked about it in the Sermon on the mount when He talked about salt losing its saltiness. It's good for nothing but to be walked on. Job lamented how everyone use to listen to him but when bad things happened to him which they assumed incorrectly to be sin related, no one listened to him anymore. I think of just over the last 5 years how many ministers of the gospel have lost their platform due to sin - Ergen Cainer, Bob Coe, Davichian, Chris Hill, Ted Haggard and the list goes on. It's not like God can never use you again, it's just in a role which Paul in 1Corinthians 12:23 calls "special modesty".
6. Discipline/punishment - vs. 14 "Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God" When David pronounced judgement on the person in Nathan's story, he was pronouncing capital punishment on himself. Yet God, in His mercy did not give David what he deserved yet there were reprecussions. The sword never parted from David's family, the child conceived from his sin with Bathsheba died, and David was not allowed to build the temple that he wanted so badly to do. Hebrews says, "Whom the Lord loves, He disciplines." He won't let you get away with sins because He loves you too much. I get caught every time, throughout my life, if I do something I shouldn't. I can't get away with anything and that's the way my "good good Father" intends it to be.
7. Affect on those around him - vs 18 "May it please you to prosper Zion, to build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous" It was like during the sin of David, sacrifices throughout Jerusalem were unacceptable. There was sin in the camp that needed to be addressed and until it was, everyone suffered. Dads, your sin affects your kids. They are observing you and will copy you. Or else, there is some kind of spiritual generational link to sinning sort of like alcoholism running in families. Or lets say your sin causes you to lose your job or marriage. Don't you think your kids would be affected by that? David's whole family was a mess after his sin.
8. Leads to more sin - "Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity." Ps. 32:4,5 The cover up. David sinned and tried to cover it up which eventually escalated to murder. One sin leads to another. One lie leads to another until you are caught in a web of deception. How much better to just confess, take the reprucussions and move on. Instead we delete texts, lock our phones with fingerprint encryption, plan alibis, avoid meeting up with certain people, etc. I wonder what would have happened if Bathsheba didn't get pregnant??
Anyway, the point is to run away from sin fast and hard. If you have sinned, confess it and get over it so that you can get back in that relationship with Jesus who is "faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1 John 1:9
