Bible Study: March 24, 2021

You read through David's prayer and know that God called him a man after his own heart.

And see the heartfelt way that he approached God when he recognized the sin that he had committed with Bathsheba. It is quite an instruction for us, not just in the words that we should say, but when we see what was in David's heart as he said that. Now, God very much appreciates when he sees in our heart a deep desire to come back to him and acknowledge what we have done and how we need to be different going forward. Before we go to Psalm 51, I want to start in 2 Samuel 11.

Because we see that David, in this prayer of repentance, he's not a novice. He just hasn't come to the knowledge of God. He has known God from the time he was a youth. And before this prayer of repentance, he had the faith to face Goliath, to face Saul, the patience that he showed as he ran from Saul all those years as he was waiting to become king. So we find in 2 Samuel 11 here the occasion where he sinned and then had to come to God with this prayer of repentance. In 2 Samuel 11, it says, it happened in the spring of the year at the time when kings go out to battle that David sent Joab and his servants with them in all Israel. And they destroy the people of Ammon and B'Sijraba. But, every time we see that word, but, even when we're talking in our lives, when we say, but, there's something coming that we should pay attention to, David, all these things were going on in Israel, but this year David remained at Jerusalem. And, you know, he should have been out probably with the people doing the things that kings do during that time of year. But, at this time of year, and maybe it was by God's design, that he stayed back at Jerusalem.

And he was a little distant from God because in the very next verse there we see that here the event with D'Aesheba happens. It happens one evening that David arose from his bed, walked on the roof of the king's house, and from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was beautiful to behold. So, David sent from her. He yielded to his lust. He yielded to his human nature. He wasn't as close to God that he should be, did not try to resist. And then all these events unfolded with Bathsheba, with the pregnancy, with Uriah, with him killing Uriah. And David wasn't a novice with God. David had been very close to God. David had enormous faith with God. But it shows us that we can be that way, but when we drift, when we neglect, when we coast through light, we can we can depart from God enough that we too could find ourselves committing a heinous sin like David did. And David was in a danger at this point. He could have just kept drifting and drifting and drifting. His sin and what he had gone through went on for months. It went on through the entire pregnancy of Bathsheba, and it wasn't until Nathan came to him and gave him the story about the little lamb. And then abruptly told David, you're the man. You're the man who did this. You stole from Uriah. You did all this. I remember that David's response to Nathan, when he was king, was he immediately acknowledged it. He didn't try to give any excuses. He didn't try to justify it. He simply acknowledged it. And he simply said, I have sinned before the Lord.

And so, David, despite the fact that he committed these sins and it went on for months, when it came to his attention, he immediately came back and he recognized his sin. So with that, he comes before God with his heartfelt prayer of repentance. That's a model for all of us. So let's go to Psalm 51 with that in the background. It teaches us that we repent not just before we're baptized and when God first calls us and we begin to realize just how far apart from God we've always lived, but even during our calling, we have, you know, we at times stray from God and we have to come back to him. And we have to recall what it was like to walk with him and be the closest that we had with him and desire that again. As we go through Psalm 51, we're going to see a few things that David talks about. He's going to talk about blotting out his sin. We're going to talk, we're going to hear him talk about restoring the relationship between God. And what he came to realize was that as he was in this state of sin, and while he wasn't close to God, he didn't even realize what he was missing in the closeness with God. And as it comes as the repentance and the recognition of what he's done comes into his mind, he desires, he desires that closeness. We've probably all been in the same boat, as you will, of David. It helps us to recall what it is, but this prayer should help us when a sin is brought to our attention or a transgression or iniquity. And we'll talk about those three words that David uses in this Psalm that we would come back to God and just repent. The first verse alone in Psalm 51 teaches that. David opens up and he says, have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving kindness.

As I was reading through some of the commentaries on this today, they said, the way David opens that Psalm, just have mercy on me. When we ask for God's mercy, immediately we acknowledge our guilt. And right up front here, David is acknowledging his guilt. He's just telling God, I've sinned. I've sinned. I need to ask for you and I need to ask for your forgiveness. I want to be back in a relationship with you again. I want to reconcile our relationship. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving kindness.

One of the things that we learned during this time and during this passover time, when we're remembering Egypt and we're remembering the coming out of Egypt, and how God showed mercy on Israel throughout that entire process.

And here, David calls on God's mercy. I hope as we've gone through the book of Hebrews and we see Jesus Christ and we understand his love for us more, maybe we appreciate it much more. Maybe we appreciate his mercy as well. I know as I was preparing this and thinking about David and him coming before him, how many times we have fallen on God's mercy and asked him to forgive us and to direct our paths and allow us to come back and continue to go forward with him. His mercy is something that none of us deserve. None of us have earned it, if you will. It's simply because God loves us so much and because he wants us to be in his kingdom. He wants us to have eternal life. He wants us to come before him. He's patient with us as we work through the process of life and coming out of a life of sin into a life that should be more and more marked by the blamelessness and the spiritual maturity that he wants. So he says, have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies. Blot out my transgressions.

He doesn't say, I deserve it. Look at what I've done in the past. You owe it to me. According to your mercies, I've sinned. Blot out my transgressions. Just get rid of them. We'll see this word blot out. You know, this phrase blot out a few times here in Psalm 51. And David is asking God, just get rid of them. Just if you can just take this off of my record, expunge my record, if you will. And that's one thing God does promise us when he forgives us, that he forgives and he forgets. When he sees heartfelt repentance and the desire, a deep desire to turn from our ways and our faults and our sins and the things that hold us back from being what he wants us to be. When he sees that desire, he does forgive and he does forget. He does expunge them from our records. You know, when we're baptized, we know that God washes us clean. He forgives all our sins. And as we go through life, when we pray these prayers of repentance after we've sinned and all of us do, all of us do, you know, he blots those out. We need to be very thankful to God that he does that and that he is willing to forgive us and let us go on and to be patient with us as we build this life of commitment to him, this life that is dedicated to overcoming self, overcoming the world, overcoming sin. Those are the 30 things that are hard for us to come out of, maybe overcoming self in our own tendencies is the hardest thing. But David opens his prayer with this, and as God licks up his prayer and has preserved it for us, you know, it's a model that we can think about. Not that we would just repeat the words, because again, it's what's in the heart that God is looking at. In verse 2, he says, Wash me thoroughly. Wash me thoroughly from my sin. And when the word thoroughly, when you look it up in the Hebrew and the Strong's concordance, it has this sense of multiple cleansing. You know, if we have a shirt, you know, a white shirt, and we get a spot on it, sometimes it's not enough to just throw it in the washing machine, and it comes out clean. We have to work. We have to work to get that stain out, and we have to scrub it, and maybe have to wash it, maybe have to wash it again, and do all these things to it to get it back to the sparkling white that we want it to be, and that there's no sign of that stain or that dirt anymore. And that's the type of thing that David is talking about here. I want my mind thoroughly. I want you to wash me thoroughly. I don't want that stain on me anymore. I don't want that spot on me anymore. I don't want that wrinkle on me anymore. I want it all gone. I want it all gone. And I'm looking at my notes here. Hold that thought. I want to go back to Isaiah 43 before we go further. Isaiah 43. Now, speaking of God's mercy, and the fact that he is always with us and promises us that he's never going to leave us or forsake us, no matter what we go through in life.

You know, we could go through health trials, we can go through financial trials, we can go through persecution, we can go through tribulation, we can go all sorts of things, but God never leaves us.

You know, we have this pandemic that is here. There will be more pandemics that come between now and the return of Jesus Christ. He'll be there with us through it all. Chapter 43, I want to get to verses 25 and 26, but I think chapter 43, the first few verses are good for us to remember. And so, since the chapter opens with that, let's read that and then go over to verse 25. Chapter 43 of Isaiah verse 1 says, But now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob, and he who formed you, O Israel. He's speaking to his people back then, but he's speaking to you and me too. We know that all these words in the Old Testament, when it talks about Israel, it's talking about you and me. God's chosen people. They were his treasure in the Old Testament. We are his treasure, and he's chosen people in the New Testament. Thus says the Lord who created you, Fear not, for I have redeemed you. And we know that Jesus Christ has redeemed us from death. Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by your name. You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flames scorch you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I gave Egypt, he gave Jesus Christ to pay for our sins, for your ransom, the Ethiopian Savior in your place, since you were precious in my sight. You have been honored, and I have loved you. Therefore, I will give men for you and people for your life, and in your peace, fear not, I am with you. It's always good for us to remember that. You know, when we're at times of trial, even with times where we have wandered from God, He's there. He's watching what's going on. We may want to put Him in the background, that we may want to forget He's there, but He is there every step of the way. And when we're ready to reconnect to Him, when we're ready to turn to Him in repentance, He's there, and He listens just as He did with David. But dropping down to verse 25 here, talking about blotting out our transgressions, there's other places in the Bible that talks about this blotting out that God does too. He does forgive, and He does forget. He does wipe our slate clean, if you will. We're the ones who keep making the stakes and blotting our list, but He blots them out. Verse 25, I, even I, am God who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.

Put me in remembrance. Let us contend together. State your case that you may be acquitted.

He says, when you come before me, when you recognize your sin, come before me. Talk about it. Don't run away from me. Come before me, and let's make amends. Let's do what's right. The purpose you've been called, the purpose you're living, is to move forward in God's grace. Acts 3, Acts 3, 19, verses that we, 3, 19, and 20, we often read around pieces of tabernacle's time, but they have their place at all times, and certainly here at Passover and 11 bread time, they're appropriate to read this too, in line with this repentance psalm. Acts 3, 19 says, repent. Repent therefore, and be converted. That's what we do before baptism, and we are in the process of conversion for the rest of our life to God's way. Repent therefore, and be converted. That your sins may be blotted out. Repent and be converted. Let God renew and transform your mind to his way of doing things.

That your sins may be blotted out, and so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. You know, I think we all have experienced the times, you know, like, like David, when we feel apart from God, and we feel distant from him, and life just doesn't seem as as interesting, and we just go through things. We know something's not right, and then, you know, God brings us to our senses, maybe with a thought that comes into our mind, or someone says something to, or somehow wakes us up to something that we aren't doing, that we should be doing, or that we have done, that we need to repent of. And when we go to God, and we repent before him, and we choose to do his way, and put our way behind, and when we feel that oneness with him again, we feel that we're back in the relationship with him again, and we have, we have repented in a heartfelt way, refreshing. The times are refreshing are there. Life is good again. We feel the energy again. We feel, we feel alive again. And we feel, as David will say later on in the Psalm 51, we feel that joy of his salvation again, something that we miss when we, when we are allowing sin in our lives, or unrepented sin in our lives. So let's go back to Psalm 51 and continue where we were. I wanted to talk about those though, as we looked at verses 1 and 2.

Here we go back to Psalm 51 and verse 2. We're talking about David. He repeats this, you know, please wash me thoroughly from my sins. Get it, wipe my slate clean, get all that stain out of me, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, he says. And then he says it in the next sentence, and cleanse me from my sins. Well, there's three, three things that David talks about in those verses. Blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. Transgressions, iniquity, and sin, he talks about. And each one of those words are separate Hebrew words. They're not the same words that the translator just decided to mix up the language a little bit. They are three separate Hebrew words. Let me tell you what they mean here. Transgressions has a sense of revolt or rebellion against God in it. They are the transgressions are when we sin against God. We maybe know better, but we aren't strong enough to tell ourselves no.

You know, I can't speak for David, but as he was as he was contemplating Bathsheba, and that night when he was standing on his roof, and she was bathing on hers, he knew better. He knew better. He knew that that was wrong. He knew that was adultery, and he shouldn't do it. But he didn't take the time and wasn't spiritually strong enough at that point to say, no, I simply will resist it. He yielded to that temptation. And that desire translated into sin. Well, in that case, he ignored God, if you will, and chose his way. And as you look at that Hebrew word that has a sense of revolt, there are times in our lives when we know better.

And we still do it. We still do it. And it's that rebellion in us that it talks about in Romans 8 and Jeremiah 17. We have to remember, we have a heart that is thoroughly wicked. Apart from God, we're worthless. And you know, Paul makes the comments in the New Testament that he knows that there's no good that dwells in him, or the only good that dwells in him is what God, what God's Spirit has put in him. And I think we all probably feel that same thing, and we get glimpses of ourselves and what we would have been like if we didn't know God. And like David, we look at that, and there's that spirit of rebellion. We don't want to do what God said. We don't want to do what we know we should do. And there's that spirit of revolt. David says, blot out my transgressions in verse one. And he uses transgressions again in verse three. There's iniquity that he uses in verse two there. Iniquity talks about a moral fault. A moral fault, perversity, is one of the words that Strong Jesus in talking about that. And that certainly fits the case here with David. But it's a moral fault. You know, we might say it's one of those sins that do so easily beset us that we talked about in Hebrews 12 a few weeks ago. We all have those sins and those works of the flesh that just crop up. And before we know it, they're there. And those are the iniquities. It could be attitudes. It could be faults in our character that God wants us to weed out, as I often say, but weed out but to strengthen. And that's where it becomes denying self and looking at ourselves and saying, I can't do that anymore. I can't be that way anymore. And when I sense that, I'd have to stop myself. You know, whether it's looking at Bathsheba on the rooftop, whether it's whatever those works of the flesh are in Galatians 5.19 that are listed, when I do it, it's like, I gotta stop. That can't be me anymore. Those are not the picture of who God wants me to be. That's who I am. That's who I buried. So iniquity is a moral fault or a character. Sin then, you know, 1 John 3, 4 tells us sin is the transmission of the law. It's breaking God's law. When we do that, we bring upon ourselves death. So David is covering all three of those things there. He's not just talking about sin. He's talking about everything in his, everything that worked together that night with him in his weakness that brought him to the sin of adultery and murder and trying to cover it up and ignoring God because for at least nine months there, he was in denial and he was he had God off into a corner that he was not paying much attention to God. And that whole time when he was covering up the pregnancy and asking God to save the child's life, but until he repented, God was not listening to him.

Yeah, okay. So, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, he says. And then the word cleanse in verse 2.

You know, it's a very demure word in the English language, but in the Hebrew language, it means make me bright, make me pure, make me unadulterated, cleanse me, make me pure. And throughout the psalm, we're going to see David continually asking God to purify him.

Now that should remind us of 1 John 3, I think it's verse 3, that says if we have the hope that God has given us, we have the hope to be in the kingdom, then we would purify ourselves. Remember that verse in 1 John 3? Like David, we need to be people who are dedicated to becoming pure and asking God to cleanse us. And it's not just a matter of cleansing up our acts, you know, it's cleaning up our minds, as we're going to see. Because David is coming from this, not just, well, I physically sinned against Bathsheba, I physically sinned against Uriah, and I physically sinned against you, God. You can tell that this is a heartfelt, deep repentance that David has. He wants this completely out of his mind and out of his history. When he asks God to wash him, he's not just asking for forgiveness of sin so that it's off my record, he's asking when he says, make me pure, I want to be pure in the inward parts. And later on in the song, he'll mention that. I want to be pure from the inside out. I don't even want this part of my makeup anymore. I want my entire state of being to be in accord with what you want me to be.

Verse 3, you know, and I'll pause here for a moment, and he says the last sentence there of first three, last phrase, and my sin is always before me. What do you think he, what is he getting at when he says my sin is always before me? Blot it out, God. Cleanse me, wash me thoroughly.

My sin is ever before me.

I think it means that he knows, he knows what he's doing is wrong. It's right there in his face. He knows it's ever before him. He's like, I know what I did. It's right there. It's staring me down. Maybe, you know, you avoid or try to avoid it, whatever, but it's right there, you know, he can't escape it. It's no matter where he goes, it's right there. So that's how that comes across to me. Yeah, yeah. God has brought us to his attention, so no, it's in his conscience, and separate from God's gracious cleansing, there's no in conscience. Yeah, I think that's exactly what he's looking at. His sin is ever before him. He has seen who he is. He knows who he is, and, you know, while God forgets our sins, or says he forgives and forgets, you know, we shouldn't maybe forget who we are. And every once in a while, like I mentioned earlier, we get a glimpse of who we are. We may do something, say something, react to something, whatever it is that we do, we think, oh, that's the old man coming up again. That's the old man that was supposed to be buried. That's who I was, but I'm not that person anymore.

David had to keep in mind, this is who I am. I am so far apart from God in my natural state, David, you know, and you and I as well, that we have to remember who we would have been without God. And when we remember that, and I don't mean constantly beating ourselves up, or feeling guilty, or, you know, wearing the sackcloth and ashes in life and things like that, you know, but just remembering who we are and where God has brought us and what He's done with us can help us to be grateful to Him and thankful to Him and be part of the energy we need going forward. He has brought us out of Egypt. He has brought us out of ourselves. He is helping us to see who we were and to take us away from the slavery that we were in to sin, where there was nothing but eternal death ahead of us and given us life. It's not a bad thing to remember that and to always be using that as a stimulus to stay close to God and always to cling to what He is calling us to and what, you know, what His goal for us is, and that is to be pure.

Okay. Verse 4 says, against you, David says, He says, against you, you only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight. Well, you know, we could say, well, He did sin against Uriah, certainly. He took Uriah's life. He did sin against Bathsheba. She followed the King.

But He says, against you, and you only have I sinned. And that's, there's a depth there in what David is saying. He's not minimizing what He did to Uriah. He's not forgetting what He's done to Uriah, what He brought Bathsheba into by his actions, or what happened to that child that was lost because of his sin. But He is saying something that shows how much David loves God, how much David loves God. You know, maybe one of the ways we can look at this is, there may have been times in our lives where we respected our parents so much, or loved them so much, that we were faced with a situation, you know, sometime in our lives that we could have done something.

But we thought, no, I can't do that. I cannot, I could not disappoint my parents, or my wife, or whoever it might be, that much that if they ever found out that I did that, that they would just be disappointed in me. I love them that much that I will use that love and respect to keep me from walking down this path. And that's a depth of love and respect that is healthy for us all to have. If all our children had that, you know, would help them as they go off to college and do the things they do, that they would remember, you know, they remember what they are taught, and it could keep them from sin.

You know, Exodus 20, the fear of God keeps us from sin. David, you know, at the time he committed the sin, he didn't have a fear of God. He chose to do what he wanted to do instead. When I read that part of this Psalm 51, it reminds me of Joseph. It reminds me of Joseph because he showed a similar sentiment back in Genesis 39. We want to turn there for a moment. You know, Joseph was a young man away from home. His brothers did him wrong, if you will.

He could have become a bitter young man and become bitter against God and chosen to go a different way of life altogether. But when he found himself in Egypt, in a foreign land, he clung the God. And he remembered what his father had taught him.

And he remembered his, he didn't call him his father in heaven, but he remembered the God in heaven. And as he went through the various trials that he did, you know, beginning in Potiphar's house and then later on in prison, and as he became second in command, we find him in Genesis 39 in Potiphar's household. And you remember the story of Joseph. He's a very good servant. He's a good worker. He's honest. Potiphar learns he can trust him just the way a servant of God should be.

Excellent employee. I can put my stock and faith in him, and he gets it done. So in Genesis 39, Joseph has become head of the household there, if you will, just under Potiphar. But Potiphar's wife has taken a shine to Joseph, and she wants to lure him into this illicit relationship. And so in verse 11, verse 11, let me look here. Oh, verse 9.

Verse 9, we find this, you know, a few times Potiphar's wife has tried to lure him into, and finally there comes this fateful day where, you know, she's not going to let him out of her grasp this time. In verse 8, he says, you know, he came to pass, well, I'll review verse 7 to set this tone for the story. He came to pass after these things that his master's wife cast longing eyes and Joseph, and she said, why with me? But he refused and said to his master's wife, look, my master doesn't know what is with me in the house, and he has committed all that he has to my hand.

There is no one greater in this house than I, nor has he kept back anything from me but you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?

Now, the natural conclusion of that sentence says he's doing that is, how then can I do this great wickedness and sin against Potiphar? Well, he does have a healthy respect for Potiphar. That's what he's saying. I wouldn't do this to Potiphar. He, you're his wife. But he says, how could I do this great wickedness and sin against God? Because Joseph, Joseph had such a deep love and respect for God that when when he was faced with temptation and sin, thought I won't disappoint God. I am doing this for him. I'm committed to do living my life his way, and if I sin, I'm disappointing the God that I love with all my heart, mind, and soul. That is such a healthy spiritual state for all of us to be, and that we should strive for it and ask God and work on ourselves that we could come to the point where we love God so much that when we're faced with a situation that we would say, there's just no way I'm going to do that. I will not bring myself to disappoint God that much. I won't sin against him. I love him that much. There's a depth of spiritual being there that we see in Joseph and that we see in David in Psalm 51 verse 4 when he says, against you I've sinned. It says that David is saying, I can't believe I did this to you, God, after everything you've done for me, after all you've offered me, you know, God made him king over Israel. He saw him through the tough times with Saul. He gave David the faith that saw through the the conquest of Goliath, and David said, I can't believe I did this to you. My loyalty is to you. We would be mindful to remember that our loyalty comes to the people in our lives, yes, but to God, to God. And that's what David is saying here in Psalm 51. And it says this prayer of repentance apart. I won't, I'm sorry I did it to you, God. I did it to you, and I am sorry I offended you. But when we have that depth of remorse, of sinning against God, it settles in us, and it helps us to go forward.

David doesn't mince any words here at all. He just simply, you know, you can see not through this Psalm, does he make any excuses? He doesn't try to blame Bathsheba. He doesn't try to blame timing. He doesn't try to excuse what he was thinking. Simply, I'm wrong. I'm wrong. I've sinned against you, and he wants back into the presence of God. Again, if anyone's got any comments or whatever, feel free to comment. Yeah, Mike?

Hello. Yes, Mike.

Yeah, just speaking about the notion of sinning against God or sinning against someone else, when we sin, it's transgression of the law. And God is the creator and arbiter of law. So ultimately, anytime we sin, we're sinning against the maker of the law, which is God. Now, in the course of sinning, we can also offend, obviously, in a smaller or great way, and harm others. But ultimately, we're sinning against God. Right. Sin is transaction against the law.

Sin is the creator of law. When we sin, we're not... ultimately, we're sinning against Him and His law. Harming others in the course of that, but it's ultimately, we're always... anytime we sin, we're sinning first and foremost against God. Because any way that we harm someone else is going to fall within a sin of some law that we're breaking. Agree. And all too often, the worldly sorrow is, I'm sorry I did this to you, I did this, the godly sorrow, as we read in 2nd Corinthians 7. That is when we are remorseful because we sinned against God. We're saying the same things, yes. Right. You get hurt in the way. Sin hurts. Sin doesn't build up. Sin destroys. So.

Brother Chebi, I saw you were going to begin there. Today, with God's help, I was looking at Genesis 9 verse 6, and the sin of murder. And God shows that we sin against Him because when a person murders their neighbor or their brother or whoever, that person is made in their image and likes. But that's how He looks at that sin. And in general, every sin is against God. Against God. Yep.

And we need to remember that.

Okay. Anything else? Verse, going on to verse 4, then, he says, that you may be found just when you speak and blameless when you judge.

Well, you know, God knows we're all sinners. He knows we're imperfect. And, you know, when He has recorded Romans 8-7, Jeremiah 17-9, that tells us that, you know, we see. Yes, we are sinful beings. We need God's mercy. We need His Holy Spirit. Without that, without that, we are now what we're hopeless. You know, I guess here in my Bible has Romans 3 verse 4 marked there in verse 4. And we could look at that, but Paul references that. I guess we may as well look at it since it's referenced there. Romans 3 and verse 4. Romans 3 verse 4. Here, you know, Paul is going through a series of questions. And again, he's showing that, you know, what God says is right. When he sees us as sinners, we are sinners.

In verse 3, he says, for what if some didn't believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? Then as you go through this chapter and ensuing chapters here, Paul says, well, certainly not. Indeed, let God be true, but every man a liar, as it is written, that you may be justified in your words, and they overcome when you are judged. So when God, you know, when God speaks to us and when God judges, He is righteous, we are the ones that are at fault, if you will. We have this moral, these moral faults that are part of us, the sin, the iniquity, the inherent evil heart that's in us that we spend a lifetime overcoming. Verse 5, David gets to some of that. He begins to talk a little bit about what's at the core of him. In verse 5, he says, Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.

So as he's talking to God and he's understanding himself and understanding what it is about him that led him to sin and how much he has yet to work on, he comes to say that his entire life he's been around sin. And if someone else, you know, as I read those verses and, you know, what, to me, what David is saying is, I was born into a world of sin. We all have been. From the time we were babies, we lived in a world of sin. Whether our parents were in the church or not, they were not perfect human beings. We were brought up in the world's ways. We were brought up in sin. David, it means no disrespect to his mother. I'm sure he loved his mother dearly. But he says, In sin my mother conceived me. I was raised in a world of sin, and now I come to you. Now I come to you, and I don't want sin to be part of my life anymore. And when you think about it, that's exactly, you and I are in exactly the same position as David. No matter how good our parents were, no matter how awful we might think our parents were, they were all imperfect. No matter how good of parents we think we are, or how awful we've been, our children, our children are still in a race and a home by sinners because we are that way. And we sin. We do not live perfect lives. And so they see that. It's an example to them, and it's in the world all around them. When they go to from the time they're a very little baby to the time they go to preschool, up to school, up to high school, up to college, in the workplace, it's all around us. You know, I, we were, um, well, you know, for most of my life, my parents were in the church. They came to the church when I was 10 years old, and they were good parents. I have no issues. I had no issues with them.

But I remember back, it back, this is several years ago, you know, we were in our 20s, and the area that we lived in had many young people our age. So we were friends with a number of them. We were, we were sitting around talking, you know, one day, and we were talking about what the world is like and how different, how different it is in the church. And it was before, when I say 1995, many of you will remember what 1995 was about, um, in the church. And some were talking about, you know, how good they were. They were there, all their Sabbath, and I remember a comment that came from some of them. It was around Passover time that we really don't have anything to repent of.

All my life, I've kept the Sabbath, all my life, we've gone to the Holy Days, they were working, and they were tithing. And I remember thinking, no, we all have things to repent of. None of us are perfect. But I, but I understood what they were saying. We weren't like the world, we weren't doing things wrong. And then 95 came, and just literally everyone in that room, you know, went the way of the world. They followed sin. And, um, but even if we were brought up in the church, we still live in a world of sin, and we need to come out of it. None of us are exempt from repentance. So whether we've, we've come from the outside, or whether we were born in the church, grew up in the church, we all, we are all products of a world of sin, and a home of sin. David says that of himself, you know, here, and talking about his family. And through our childhoods, and through our adolescence, we see things that we've picked up that are apart from God's law. Things that we might have kept hidden, things that we've done, and attitudes that we've may have come up on, or, or allowances that we've made ourselves, that when we're older, and we realize what we're doing, take some time to weed out of our lives. You know, God, God addresses the same thing that David was talking about back here in Genesis 8. You know, we all strive to raise our children in godly homes, and we absolutely should. God should be part of everything we do. We should be teaching his way, living his way, talking about his way. But we are formed in iniquity. In Genesis 8, as Moses, not Moses, Noah is coming off of the ark, and God is ushering him off. And as Noah comes off, in verse 20 of Genesis 8, says, Noah built an altar to the eternal, and he took of every clean animal and every clean bird and offered bird offerings on the altar. It's one of those verses that you might use if someone says, oh clean knees, clean and unclean knees. They were only for those Israelites. That's only for the Old Testament. We don't do that in the New Testament. No, it goes all the way back to the beginning of time. Here, Noah even knew you don't even sacrifice unclean animals to God. He knew all that, as we know, and we can prove that. But that's an aside. In verse 21, as Noah offered these offerings to God, says the Lord smelled a soothing aroma, and he said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. Even from his youth, this sin, he's beginning to live and he's raised in sin.

And when we're older, we come out of that way of sin. And that takes a lifetime. That takes a lifetime to unseed some of those things that have been planted in us from a very, very young age, when God opens our minds to see what they are. David, as he's looking at his sin here in Psalm 51, that's clearly before him, he can't deny what he's done. He recognizes, I have lived a life of sin. I am a sinful being. I need God to literally wash me thoroughly, get rid of all of this thing, get rid of all my pasts. And when we're buried in the waters of baptism, that's what we're telling God, all my past life I repent of, all my past life, you know, wash away. I want to be of newborn in your sight and you write your principles. You be my father, you teach me, you train me. And so, David is talking about that here, too, and we can remember that as well, whether we were raised in the church or not raised in the church, we all have things to repent of, and for the rest of our lives, we will be working on that. Verse 6, verse 6, Psalm 51, Behold, he says, Use I are truth in the inward parts. And I've written in my Bible here, Luke 1139. We talked about Luke 1139 a few weeks ago in a sermon. And that's where God is upbraving the Pharisees. And he says, you Pharisees, you make sure the outside of the cup looks really nice, but in the inside, but in the inside, you're filthy, basically, you know, basically just, you should be cleaning up the inside of the cup, and not just the outside. And so many of us, you know, that's the way of the world, we just want to look good to everyone that we come in contact with, but look good to everyone that we know at church, good look, look into our boss. But what's going on on the inside? That's what God is looking at. That's, that's where the transformation occurs. That's what, when he looks into our mind, what ifs our motives? What is in our heart? When David asked in Psalm 139 verses 23 and 24, Search my heart, see, you know, let me know the wicked ways that are in me, the wicked motives that are in me. He is looking and searching for this complete cleansing that he asks for in his prayer of repentance. He's asking for forgiveness, but in this, remember, forgiveness is one thing, and God is willing, and Jesus Christ died that our sins could be forgiven, but the other part of repentance is we have to turn to God with our own, our whole heart, not just ask for forgiveness to be forgiven, but then do the things that he, do the things that he has called us, called us to do.

So we hold you desire truth in the inward parts. That's what God wants. That's the transformation of the mind. That's the renewing of the mind in Romans 12, 1 and 2 that we talk about, and that we ask God to bring in us, that we understand our lives. We really do owe him everything. Without him, we are nothing. We are nothing. Absolutely nothing. We're worthless. We don't have life in us. It's his forgiveness and his spirit that leads us to repentance and life that is all the difference in the world for us. Behold, he says you desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part you will make me to know wisdom. In that hidden part, you will make me to know wisdom.

Not the wisdom of the world that might say, well, this is the way to get this done, this is the way to get that done, but the way that God would look at it. We talked about that back in the book of James, and we're going through the book of James. Let's go back there for a moment. James 3 verse 17.

James 3 verse 17 talks about what the wisdom of God is. What the wisdom that is from above is first pure. What does David ask? Cleanse my heart. Wash me thoroughly from my sin.

Cleanse. I want to be pure. I want to be bright. I want to be unadulterated. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure. Then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield. How big of a part of Passover the days of love and bread is our being willing to yield to God and humble ourselves before Him. His first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits.

Remember, God is pleased when we use His Holy Spirit, and the fruits of the Spirit are evident. Full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. The inside is clean, and the outside is clean. What you see is what you get. When you see a person that's truly converted, when you see them, you know that that's the way you can rely on them, you can trust in them, because God's Spirit is in them. That's the wisdom that David is looking for and that we asked for.

His first pure, blot out my transgressions, purify me. Verse 7 starts off with, purge me with hyssop. The Hebrew word purge, purify, purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.

Now that word hyssop is, I call it an unleavened bread, an unleavened bread word.

Can you think of other places that hyssop shows up? I did look up hyssop to see what it was. I knew it was a plant. It's in the mint family, so it has a cleansing property to it. When you read some of the things about hyssop, it'll talk about that. It does have some medicinal effects in cleansing and whatever. Can you think of other places where hyssop shows up, incidentally, like it does here in this prayer of repentance? Well, one of the places is back there at that Passover, so we talked about this past Sabbath, and Exodus 12. It's in Leviticus 14 verse 4. It's used as a ritual offering sacrifice. Okay. Leviticus 14 verse 4. What verse are you in? Leviticus 14 verse 4. Okay, that's a good place. Leviticus 14 verse 4. That's one of the places that's there, and there it's that whole chapter has to do with cleansing, right? You have people that are leprous, and when they're pronounced clean, hyssop is there as part of the cleansing ceremony that they go through. You probably have that verse there, right? In verse 4? Yes. Yeah, there it is in verse 4, just like everything you said. Okay, the pre-show command to take for him who is to be cleansed, two living and clean birds, cedarwood, scarlet, and hyssop. It's a cleansing process. Later on, that same chapter talks about mold in a house, and hyssop shows up in that. When they're purifying the house, you're getting rid of the mold in the house as well. So it's a cleansing agent, you know, hyssop, I guess, still exists. I guess if we really look for it, we could find hyssop somewhere. Maybe we should just to kind of see what hyssop really looks like. And maybe I'll, well, I don't know if I'll have time between now and Sabbath to do that. But it'd be interesting to see what hyssop is like as a plant. But it has that cleansing property. So okay, so we find that in Leviticus 14 in the cleansing chapter. Another place? John 19. Where are you? Leviticus 19? John 19. Very good. When they gave Christ wine with hyssop. Yep. There in John 19, Jesus Christ is about to die. They offer him, as Dave said, the wine on hyssop. And he refuses, and then he dies.

So it's incidentally mentioned there as part of that full Passover day and the death of Christ.

David mentions it as repentance, so we know we're in this time of year when we focus on the repentance that we need to do continually. It's not just that Passover time. We also find it back in Exodus 12.

In that Passover, in that Passover that we spoke of when Israel was going to be released from Egypt.

Yeah, Exodus 12 and verse 22.

As Moses is instructing them what to do with the blood of the Passover lamb, he says, you shall take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel in the two-door posts with the blood that is in the basin. And none of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning.

So incidentally, we have hyssop there as part of that Passover service. We have hyssop incidentally there when Christ is dying and fulfilling, and he becomes the Passover lamb. We have hyssop in David's prayer of repentance. We have hyssop as part of the cleansing of the physical situations we can get ourselves in, or that we, you know, the leprosy, which is an awful illness, or the mold in the house in order for them to be cleansed, it took hyssop. So when David says, purify me with hyssop, he's going to the nth degree of the physical realm, if you will. You know, I don't want you to just take a Brillo pad. I just don't want you to take whatever it is, a sponge, well, you know, that's anointed with dawn liquid, dishwashing liquid. I want you to take hyssop and purify me. I want to be purified with what you created as a cleansing agent that you have identified in the Bible as the, I guess, ultimate, if you will, of cleaning agents. That's how serious David is when he is asking God and continues to remind him, purify me. I want to be clean from the inside out. And you get the sense of David, and every time I read the Psalm, I get the sense of David, you know, I'm that hyssop, just scrub my mind clean. Just keep rubbing on my mind. Cleanse it, cleanse it, cleanse it. Get out these thoughts, get out these tendencies, get out these lifelong ways of reacting or whatever it is that we do, these lifelong sins, these sins that do so easily beset. Just keep rubbing and scrubbing and purge me with hyssop until they're not even part of it anymore. I'm not even tempted by it anymore. Eliminate that from me. And that's what God does as we continue to walk with him, and as we continue to use his Holy Spirit, he will scrub us clean. We all need to be scrubbed clean, and when we're resurrected, he will, you know, that prayer will be answered. We will be free of all those things that have resulted in sins and iniquities and transgressions in our life. Mr. Shaby? Yes, sir. I was gonna say something else I think is interesting about hyssop is how it's associated with the transference of blood, you know, because they used it for sprinkling the blood. So the blood itself of the sacrifice was then being transferred to the center in that regards and washing it, you know, to wash it clean. And you think about the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and his blood being applied to us to wash us clean from our sins. I think it's a very awesome example there when you think about it as well. So that's just another area, I think, about hyssop. Yep, very good.

And as we in John 19, the hyssop is with the wine. So the hyssop is identified with the blood and the wine as in our examples here of Old Testament Passover and the Passover, last Passover of Christ. So okay, purge me with hyssop, purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Consistent, plea to God, clean me up, make me pure, white, and unadulterated. It's good forward to Isaiah 1.

Because as God is, you know, inspires Isaiah to write this here in Isaiah 1, he uses some of the same words here when he's speaking to physical Israel. Of course, he's speaking to us too, because we all need to be washing ourselves. Isaiah 1 in verse 16 says, wash yourselves, make yourselves clean. Well, we know it's only God who can cleanse us, only he can forgive us, but it is the actions that we take. They are the choices that we make that will, that move us along to this ultimate goal of purification. Wash yourself, make yourselves clean, put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, rebuke the oppressor, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. He gives us several action steps as we are washing and as he is purifying us. He's there. We absolutely need his spirit, but they are the choices that we make that move us from the spotted, filthy people that we are to the purification that God is looking for us. In verse 18, he says, come now and let us reason together. Similar words that we read earlier this evening. Come now and let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Only God can take red and turn it into white. Only through his process can our sins like scarlet transform us into someone who is as white as snow as we go through this cleansing process. Verse 19, if the big word, if you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land. If you are willing and obedient, if we yield to God, but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

So the choice is ours. God has opened the way for us to become white and pure and bright and and unadulterated. It's up to us to make the choices in life and to stay close to him and do those things that he calls us to do. So we go back to Psalm 51.

We see this consistent plea to God. As David, you can see what's in his heart.

Forgive me, blot out my transgressions, but that's not all. I want to become as white as snow.

Make me, verse 8, make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones you have broken may rejoice.

Make me hear joy and gladness. You know, David, as he went through those months where he was a part from God, he felt the distance. And I dare say when, you know, we have an opportunity to talk to David and he's talking about that time, he'll tell us there was no joy in his life.

Something was missing. There wasn't the spring in his step. There wasn't the eagerness to wake up in the morning. Or apart from God, we lose energy. And life just isn't as interesting and enjoyable as it is. We know, if we have God's Holy Spirit, we know what the joy is. That is, that second list of fruit of the Holy Spirit. When we're apart from God, that joy is diminished. David, as he's recalling the relationship he had with God, he's longing for that again. Make me hear joy and gladness. Down in verse 12, he says, restore to me the joy of your salvation. Uphold me by your generous spirit. He's seeking that joy. If we feel ever that the joy has disappeared from our lives, that it's just not there. We don't find the energy. We might want to stop and examine ourselves, whether it's before Passover or whether it's three months from now or any time of the year, and look and see what are we doing? What are we doing? How have we departed from God? He's there. He's constant. He's always there. It's us who moves. Is there something in our lives that we need to go back? We need to repent before God so that that joy that we become used to, that we enjoy, is there. That can be restored again. That's what he's asking here in verse 9. If we look at Psalm 32, another one of David's Psalms, he talks about this joy and these bones. He says, he says, make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones you have broken may rejoice.

Back in Psalm 32, he talks about the joy and the bones of his that roll. Let's read the first six or seven verses here in Psalm 32. He starts off with something I hope we all do. Thank God for the forgiveness that he gives us and that Jesus Christ has made possible through the sacrifice of his life. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit. Well, David's saying blot out those sins and David was seeking a spirit to be a person in whom there was no deceit. Psalm 15 talks about that as well. When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long. When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long. I was just in misery. There was really no nothing great in my life. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me. I knew something wasn't right. There wasn't the joy. There was something I felt distant in you. And God will always be there when we return. Day and night your hand was heavy upon me. My vitality was turned into the drought of summer. Say, la. So there's a pause. David is describing a condition there where he's feeling apart from God and how he felt. Verse 5, I acknowledged my sin to you and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Okay? I recognize I have sinned. Isaiah 59, 1 and 2 tells us that our sin separates us from God. When we're separate from God, we don't feel the joy, we don't feel all the energy and zeal for life that we otherwise have. David recognizes this, he acknowledges his sin, he confesses it to God, he knows that God forgives him.

Verse 6, for this cause everyone who is godly shall pray to you in a time when you may be found. Surely in a flood of great waters they shall not come near him. You are my hiding place. You shall preserve me from trouble. You shall surround me with songs of deliverance. God is always there.

God always wants to see us repent. God always looks at our hearts and God is always willing to forgive.

You know, 2 Peter, I think 2 Peter 3 verse 9 says he's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Repentance is key, whether it's before baptism and during our entire lives, the rest of our lives after baptism. When we feel distant from God, repent. Turn back to him, repeat your commitments to him, repeat to yourself what we committed to him to follow. And David is doing that in Psalm 51. Those bones that seem so weary, those bones that may seem broken, you know, all of a sudden they come back to life. What does God say in Psalm to Psalm 91? I renew your strength like that of eagles. You know, all life comes back when we're at one with God. Make me hear the joy, Psalm 51 verse 8, in gladness, that the bones you have broken may rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and there again he says, and blot out all my iniquities. Verse 10, create. Create in me a clean heart. Well, there's that word that's an adjunct to cleanse that we read back in verse 2, you know, created me a clean heart, a pure, unadulterated heart.

Again, when we were baptized, what we did was we put to death the old man. We told God, this old guy that's been around forever along, I denounce him, I reject him. I don't want that life anymore. He is buried, and so all that is supposed to be buried, and the past clip behind us, and then we come up out of the waters of baptism, and we have hands laid on us, and we receive God's Holy Spirit. That's, we, in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 17, it says, for a new creation, create in me a clean heart. Oh God, it's all a process of what we're doing, and David, who sees that he has departed from God, he's longing now for this clean heart. Let me get back where you are, and live, live in your light, create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Create in me a clean heart, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Well, our own natural spirits are not steadfast. They're wicked. They're wicked, but when we have the Spirit of God, he gives a spirit of power, and of love, and of the sound mind. You know, Peter says at the end of his first epistle, or second epistle, that your hearts may be established. We're settled with what we're God. We are, it's a steadfast, steady spirit, and David hasn't felt that in a while, and it's a comfort to us. So, no matter what we go through in life, when God's spirit is there, and that we are close to God, and we are living our lives in accordance with him, whether it's persecution, tribulation, health problems, finance problems, relation problems, when we're constantly working toward God's will. And we remember Romans 12, verse 2, that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds, the renewing of our minds, that they're transformed from the way we used to think, and the way we used to react, the way we used to process things, to the way that God does. Create in me a clean heart, wash that mind, let me see things, and process things the way that you do God, and be led by the mind that was in Jesus Christ, that he wants to put in us if we let him. Renew that steadfast spirit within me. In verse 11, you know, someone asked a question on verse 11. It says, do not cast me away from your presence, do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Well, David is aware of what so many in the world's Christianity are not aware of.

He recognizes that he had God's Holy Spirit. He's looking for God's Spirit back. He recognizes that he's been wrong, and he's been wrong for a while. It wasn't just a one-day sin and then a repentance. It was a life that was a nine-month, at least period, there where where David was in act of sin and denial against God. And David recognized God gives his Spirit. God can take away his Spirit.

And that's what he's saying, please, please God, do not take your Spirit from me. I'm coming before you and I'm begging you. I want to turn back to you. I desire all this in my inward parts. I don't want me anymore. I acknowledge my fault. That is not who I am or who I want to be. That is who I am. That's not who I want to be. And so David's aware, please don't take your Spirit from me.

Don't leave me is what he's saying. And you know what? With an attitude like David is having, God's not going to take his Spirit away. God's not going to remove himself from David. He promises us that he will never leave us or forsake us. He was there with David the entire time when the Bathsheba and Uriah and subsequent events were going on. And David's like, he was there.

He was patient. He watched David. Did he watch David? Kind of deny him and forget that he was there. And kind of David was ignoring him during all that time. But boy, when the time came, David was right back there. God is patient with us. And as long as we recognize, you know, we have to come before God in heartfelt repentance and he won't take his Spirit. He is not about us perishing. It will be us who make the decision, I don't want your Spirit. I don't want to do your will anymore. I want to do my way. I choose my way. And I will resist what you say until God realizes our hearts are so hardened and our hearing is so dull that simply we're not going to change. How do we get to that point? You know, there's two verses that we can look at. Ephesians 4 verse 30 tells us not to grieve God's Spirit. It tells us in that series of verses, they are put on the new man. And I think it's verse 30 there. Ephesians 4 says, do not grieve the Spirit of God.

David grieved the Spirit of God. David did when he sinned with Bathsheba, when he had Uriah murdered, when he resisted God, he was grieving God's Spirit. He was going against what God's will is. You and I have done the same thing. You know, there's times when we recognize, I should be doing this, but you know what? I'm just going to kind of do it this time. I just don't want to do it. I don't, whatever the thing is, I don't even want to give an example of it. I just don't want to yield to God totally on this. Now we know better. And that grieves this Holy Spirit, but God doesn't go, God doesn't run away and say, you're cut off. But when we recognize that sin, we come back and repent. In 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 19, it simply says, don't quench the Spirit. You know, God doesn't quench His Spirit in us. He gives it to us.

We are the ones who would quench His Spirit by continually denying Him, continuing in sin, even when it's brought to our attention to just continue doing the same thing over and over and over. And we can grieve and grieve and grieve His Spirit until we finally quench it and we put it out. And that's the time when we're in danger. We're in danger and God could take His Holy Spirit away from us, you know, at that point. We talked about that in Hebrews, you know, chapter 6 and Hebrews chapter 12 as well. David was fully aware of that. And we should be fully aware of that as well. And, you know, as we read last week, Jesus, or the week before, Jesus said, the Father will never deny anyone who asks with the right heart for His Holy Spirit. How much more will your Father give you the Holy Spirit to those, give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?

So it is appropriate to ask for God's Spirit. Okay, any questions or comments on any of that? Okay.

Okay, verse 12. Restart in me the joy of your salvation. There's a number of verses we can turn to there on the joy of your salvation. Let's just look at a couple of them. Romans 14.

Paul talks about the joy that's in God's kingdom. And as we look toward His kingdom, and as that is the country that we are looking toward in the kingdom that we aspire to be in, as we allow God to mold us into who we need to be to serve Him and others in that kingdom. Romans 14 and verse 17.

You know, Paul writes this, verse 16, he says, Don't let your good be spoken of as evil, for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking. It's not just physical. There are going to be physical things there. It's the spiritual that God is looking for us in this day as well. For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but it is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. It's a good place to be. It'll be God's way. That's the way that'll be lived there. And as a result of living God's way, there will be peace.

There will be joy. The joy we can only understand as we have God's Holy Spirit. And as that is in us. Let's look at Psalm 35, another one of David's Psalms. Psalm 35.

35 and verse. 35 and verse 9.

My soul, David writes, my soul shall be joyful in the eternal. It shall rejoice in his salvation. And you can see that he talks about bones again. And then that Psalm as well. My soul shall be joyful in the Lord. It shall rejoice in his salvation. You can look at Isaiah 16 and verse 15 and other places that you can look up. There is joy in our lives in the salvation that Jesus Christ has provided for us as we have talked about so much over the last few months. That joy, we shouldn't take to granted. Sometimes we lose it and then we realize how important and how vital it is in our lives. That's the time as we come back to God and seek that. Okay, two more verses in Psalm 51. We're not going to get through all 19 verses today, but I wanted to get through the meat of the repentance section. And then two verses here to look at. Verse 13. You see, well, David says in verse 12 at the end of 51 and verse 12, he says, and uphold me by your generous spirit. God will freely give his spirit. The more we use it, the more we see him using it, and he sees that we are dedicated and really committed to living his way of life. He will increase the spirit. He will give us all the tools we need. He will increase our understanding. He will increase our repentance. I mean, repentance is a gift from God. And as we live that life, and he sees that we really do want to yield to him and have him created in us a clean heart, he will grant that, and we will understand it more and more. Uphold me by your generous spirit. And then, as we have this gift from God, as he turns our lives around, as we have purpose, and as we have a reason to live again, and as we're focused on his kingdom, and as we're walking one-on-one with God and have that relationship intact that motivates us and that, oh, that motivates us and that lifts us up. David says, then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners shall be converted to you. I'll speak of it. When people ask me a reason of the hope that's in me, I'll tell them. When people say, how come in the face of all those things going on in the world today, you seem so settled and so established. You don't seem like you're totally out of whack on things. I'll tell them. We don't go around proselytizing whatever, but David says, I'll teach others your ways. He's thankful. He's grateful to God and wants others. You can see the love in him. I want others to understand this, too. God is good. God is forgiving. God is merciful. God is patient. God wants everyone to have eternal life. The steps to it, though, faith in him, repentance, baptism, laying on of hands, and the doctrines that we talked about in Hebrews 6. So there is that element, and we do that as we go in life. We live God's way of life from that time. We just don't get forgiveness and then go on the way we were. We teach our children. We teach others that we come in contact with. We're teachers to each other in the body that he places us into. And I will teach transgressors your way, and sinners shall be converted to you. Okay, one more verse. Let's look at verse 17.

You know, God, you know, he repeats some of the concepts of these other verses that we've talked about already. In verse 17, a notable verse, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.

In our natural spirit, it's enmity against God. It tells us that in Romans 8-7, Jeremiah 17, 10-9 tells us our heart is wicked. Our spirit is in rebellion against God, our natural carnal spirit. Satan is the same spirit that he has where he has the audacity to stand up before God and challenge him. And throughout all our histories, throughout our lives, through our childhood, through the history of man on earth, Satan has been there to challenge God and stand up to him, to make to want him to be equal. And Satan is the epitome of standing up against God. That same spirit is in us. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. We will yield to him. No matter how badly we want to do something, when we see that it's wrong, we give it up. You know, I hear some people say, I wouldn't give this up, I would give that. You know what? When it's right, you give it up if it's God's way. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a humble spirit that's yielding to him that trembles at his words. A broken and a contrite heart, a humble heart, one that can be molded, one that can be fixed, one that is seeking to please God 100% of the time. A broken and a contrite heart, these, O God, you will not despise.

Now, they're gifts from God, and that's what he's looking at us. And when we have his spirit in us, that leads us to that broken and contrite heart, that humility, you know, that we'll talk about it even, or that we'll picture even in the first part of the Passover service there. Let me conclude with one other psalm. I was going to look this up, and I didn't. It might be the shortest psalm, might be the shortest chapter in the Bible, I don't know, but it's one that was penned by David as well. And you can see what's in David's heart, in the short little psalm. It's kind of like there's this little burst. We talked a few weeks ago about Jesus Christ, and he would just pause and thank God for what he had done. Remember, we were talking about the 70 that God sent out, and Christ paused. Just thank God for the faith of those 70. Here in Psalm 117, David, and God records this for us, just a simple little praise where David is in his heart. Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles. Doesn't even say all you Israelites, right? The Gentiles, it wasn't until the New Testament that God was opening salvation up to people of every tribe, tongue, and nation. But David was even talking about praising the Lord, you Gentiles. You're going to come to understand that God, I know, he is a good God. Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles. Law him all you peoples, for his merciful kindness is great toward us. And the truth of the Lord endures forever. Praise him. Just a simple little prayer, but you know, that's the joy that's in the heart. That just comes forth when we're walking with God, and when we repent and stand before him. Those are the type of things that we will experience, and that create that joy and energy in us. So let me pause there. It looks like we're at the end of our time anyway, but any discussion, comments, other things? I mean, I've given you kind of what some of my ideas are on here. I know there's probably other things people have thought about as well. Yes. Yes, Mr. Shaby. When David committed his sin, and maybe he had forgotten God for a while for that to be done, but when Nathan the prophet came into him, he came back to reality.

And, you know, he had this great profound sense of grief that he had grieved God's spirit. And I don't think there is anyone else that could express themselves with such heartfelt and striking words as David did. You know, he was surely sorry, he was ashamed, and he bared it. He bared all to God and asked God for his forgiveness. Yes. Those words can touch anyone who has sinned against God and realized it. These words are really striking words for sinners coming back to God. Yes, they are. They are the model prayer. You can, like you said, you can see David's heart in those words. You can see, they're not just words, what he was feeling in the inward parts. Yeah. I'm going back to verse five, where David says, I was brought for the inequity. It reminds me where it says in Adam, we all die. Because Adam sinned, we have all inherited that death gene, and we all sinned, say one person, our Lord, who came to gain flesh.

And then the second, the sister idea, where she was saying that David, when God showed him and brought it to his attention, reminds me of the the power of what Christ gave of the young man who squandered everything. And he came to his senses and said, I've sinned against heaven, and then he went home and he was accepted by his father. Yeah, very good. Never too late to turn back to God. Always turn back to God, and always turn back to him.

Okay, well...