From the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster we present Let the Bible Speak. It's good to have you join us today as we spend time around the Word of God, preaching Christ in all his fullness to men and women in all their need. God like thee, O our God, with heart and hands and voices, who wondrous things has done, in whom this world rejoices, who from our mother's arms Has blessed us on our way, With countless gifts of love, And still lives ours today. Who made this wondrous world, Through all our life be near us, With ever joyful hearts, And blest in peace endure us. to keep us in his grace, and guide us when we're placed, and free us from all ills in this world and the next. All praise and thanks to God, The one eternal God, With heaven and earth adored, For thus it was this night, and shall be evermore. For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore. We want to thank you for joining with us for our Let the Bible Speak broadcast. It is our prayer that if you do not know Christ as Savior, that the Lord will speak to your heart, that you'll come to know Him as your own and personal Savior. I want to read some verses from the Psalm 51. I'm going to commence at the opening verse of the Psalm. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy love and kindness. According unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee." We're going to end our reading at verse 13, and we're going to unite our hearts together in a word of prayer. Our gracious and loving God, we pray that thou will draw near to us as we meditate upon thy holy word. We thank you for the Bible. We thank you that it is inerrant and infallible. And we thank you for the revelation it makes to us of Jesus Christ, the one who can save us from our sins, the Son of God, who came from glory into this world Thank you for his spotless life. Thank you for his miracles, for his gracious words. And we thank you above all for his atoning death on Calvary's cross. We pray that we might be drawn near to him and that thy blessing might rest upon us. For we ask in his holy and worthy name. Amen. I want to speak tonight on two verses from the psalm that I was reading from just a moment ago. Psalm 51 verses 12 and 13. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee. The Psalm 51 is the great penitential psalm. There's a heading above the psalm that tells us the occasion of which this psalm was penned. David had sinned very grievously, and he had been confronted by Nathan the prophet. When Nathan confronted him, David said, I have sinned against the Lord. And he went forth from that encounter with Nathan into the very presence of God to bemoan and repent of his sin. And very deeply did he repent. And he poured out his deepest feelings before God. There are many verses in this psalm that we might look at to show the depth of David's feeling. But I want us to concentrate on these two that I've just mentioned, verses 12 And 13, David longs for the restoration of joy in his soul. He has lost the joy of salvation. And as we think about these two verses, the first thing I want you to notice is this. Salvation is a source of joy. Now, that's not what The world believes, but it's what David knew. He says, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. He had experienced joy in being saved. As a young man walking with God, fighting God's enemies, and composing beautiful psalms, and organizing the worship of the nation, and ruling over the nation, he had known the depth of joy that comes from salvation. Those who are unsaved, their joys are transient. They last just for a season. That's what Moses also discovered. He thought about the pleasures of sin, and he reckoned them all up, and he concluded they are just a season. And at the end of that season, there is tragedy, as the soul passes out into eternity without preparation, without forgiveness, without Jesus Christ as Savior. But the child of God has real joy in his or her heart. Just think of this. We know what it is to be forgiven. In 1 John chapter 1 and verse 9, we are told, if we confess our sins, he, that is God, is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Isn't it tremendous? when you know your sins are forgiven and you know that you have peace with God. Indeed in Romans 5 in verse 1 it says, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. God's people have been adopted into God's family, predestinated onto the adoption of children or of sons by Jesus Christ, as Ephesians 1 and verse 5 tells us. And then something more wonderful, we are everlastingly loved. In Jeremiah 31 and verse 3, the Lord says to his people, yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. And that everlasting stretches back in time into eternity past, and it stretches forward in time into eternity to come. How wonderful to be loved and loved by God eternally. We know, too, that God has accepted us. For Ephesians 1 and verse 6 says, we are accepted in the beloved. And then we have a glorious future. The Apostle Paul, in 2 Corinthians 5, speaks about that time when the Christian dies. That child of God in death is absent from the body, but does not cease to exist. The Bible says, absent from the body, present with the Lord. And we look forward to the resurrection morning when we shall rise triumphant and meet the Lord Jesus Christ with new bodies that have been fashioned without failure, without blemish, and that we will have a perfect body to match the perfection that is in our souls. In this life, we have fellowship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and we are able to bring all our problems, all our fears, all our difficulties, all our sorrows, and spread them out before God. We are told by Peter in 1 Peter 5 and verse 7, casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you. That is so sweet for every child of God. And God's people have known joy even in the most difficult of circumstances. When Paul and Silas were thrown into prison in Philippi, their backs were sore from beating, their feet were held fast so that they could not move freely around, And yet we are told that at midnight, Paul and Silas prayed and they sang praises unto God. They knew the peace of God because they knew the joy of God's salvation. Those who are not saved don't appreciate our joy because they do not have true spiritual life. Christ said, I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. The child of God is and should be a joyful person. Listen to what Paul says in Philippians 4 and verse 4. He says, rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice. What a joy it is to be a child of God. And David knew that. That's why he speaks of the joy of salvation. But that leads me to a second thought. And that is that the joy of salvation may be lost. You don't ask for something to be restored. if you haven't lost it. David says, restore, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. He's really saying to us, and he's saying before God, I've lost the joy, but he hadn't lost the salvation. Remember this, Christ said, my sheep hear my voice. and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life." Now, if you have eternal life, it lasts forever. It doesn't last for six months, or 10 years, or 40 or 50 years. If it's eternal, it lasts forever. But Christ didn't finish there. He went on to say, they shall never perish. Not only have we eternal life, We never perish. That is what Christ has said. And he said, no man is able to pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. There's a quadruple guarantee, eternal life, never perishing, held firmly in the hand of Christ, and held firmly then in the hand of the Father. So we cannot lose. Salvation. You might say, I know people and they profess to be saved and then they fell away and they never showed any more interest in the things of God. Well, it is possible to make a false profession. We think of Judas Iscariot. Everybody thought Judas was a child of God. He preached, he performed miracles. The other disciples never suspected him until he betrayed Christ. in the garden of Gethsemane. Judas Iscariot was a false professor. He was never really saved. You can lose a profession, but if you're really born again, really saved by the grace of God, you cannot be lost. But there is something that can be lost by the Christian, and that is not the salvation itself, but the joy. of salvation. And as you read through Psalm 51, you hear David the Psalmist, after his great failure, complaining and bitterly repenting of his terrible sin. He's a very unhappy man. He says in verse two of the Psalm, wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. He is so miserable. so unhappy because of his failure and his sin. And he is so repentant. And you find the same. Every time a child of God fails, there is sorrow. The joy of salvation is lost. You see the same in Peter, failed the Lord. Three times over, he said he did not know the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ had warned him. But Peter was very confident, and he said, though all men deny thee, I'll not deny thee. I'm ready to go with thee to prison and to death. But when the pressure came on, Peter failed. He was accused of being a follower of Christ. He said, no, I'm not. I don't even know the man of whom you are speaking. And then on the third occasion, Christ turned around and looked on Peter. Peter's heart was crushed. He was broken. And the Bible says he went out and he wept bitterly. He had lost the joy of God's wonderful and free salvation. He hadn't lost salvation. You follow his career after that when he repented and returned. He was greatly used. Right at the end of his life, he's writing for us under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Now, I believe we may lose the joy of salvation in other ways, through testings, through satanic attack, and few Christians go through life without encountering some periods of darkness and doubt. What should we do in a situation like that? Well, Isaiah 50 in verse 10 says, who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay upon his God. When you cannot see your way ahead and you've lost some of that joy, maybe not through failure and sin, you cling to the Lord, you run to Him, you cry to Him, and there will arise light for you in the darkness. Now, we're focusing on David's failure here rather than on the testing times that cause us to have fears. And in David's case, the joy of salvation was lost by sinning against God. May I just put in a warning note here? We should do all in our power to avoid sin, and we should speedily repent when we do sin. Get close to the Lord. Pour out your heart before Him. Otherwise, you will be miserable, you will be wretched, and you'll come to the conclusion, I don't know if I'm really saved or not. So we've got to pray earnestly about recovery from failure. And David, when he cried to God, he knew. He knew that God had heard him. And not only did he plead for the restoration of the joy of salvation, he repented bitterly. And that's the key. The depth of our repentance should in a real measure be equal to the depth of our failure and our shame and our sin. And then accompanying David's prayer for restoration is a plea for help in the future. Do you want the restoration of joy? At the same time, you'll not want to fail as you have failed before. You'll have felt the bitterness of failure and the awfulness of failing the Lord. And so you'll say, Lord, not only restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, but help me in the future. And that's what David says here. He says, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and He doesn't stop with the restoration of joy. He says, and uphold me. with thy free spirit." He's really saying, put your arms underneath me. Help me, Lord. I don't want to fail in this way again. I have seen what failure's like. I have seen the wretchedness of my sin. I felt the misery of my sin. Uphold me with thy free spirit. Put your arms underneath me. Strengthen me, and let me not fall again. into this miserable failure and sin. And Peter, of course, was the same. Peter didn't trust himself after he had failed when Christ said to him, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Christ used a very strong word for love. And Peter, he used a word that indicated more affection than love. Thou knowest that I love thee, but if we looked at it in its original, thou knowest that I have an affection for thee. Peter didn't trust himself because he had failed. And he needed, as David needed, the arms of the Lord, to be underneath him, to uphold him. And isn't that something for us to think of as well? When you've failed and you're conscious of failure, you pray for forgiveness, you pray for the restoration of joy, and you pray for support for the future. You're saying, Lord, put your arms underneath me. Strengthen me up. Hold me. Grant me the power of thy Holy Spirit that I might not fail as I have failed in the past. And as I feel so miserable in my failure, I need strength to come from thee. And then we find something more. David isn't content merely with repenting, looking for the restoration of joy and seeking support for the future. He also thinks of the obligation he has to other people. He says in the verse 13 of the psalm, then when I'm forgiven, When joy is restored, when you're upholding me, Lord, he says, then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee. David knew something. He knew that by failure, he had let down the Lord, and he had brought reproach upon the name of the Lord. Indeed, Nathan the prophet, when he came to him, had confronted him, and he had said to him, by this deed, By what you have done, this terrible sin that you have committed, David, you have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. There were many in Israel, when they discovered what David had done, they not only blamed David, but they spoke ill of the Lord. They would have said, here is the one that was teaching us. Here is the one that we looked up to. He gave us the Psalms and we were reciting the Psalms and singing the Psalms and enjoying the Psalms. And now look what he has done. He has turned away from the one that he professed to love. The young man that went out and fought against Goliath and the strength of the Lord, He is turned away from the Lord. And look what he has done. Look at the sin that he has committed. Look at the horrible deed that was done to Uriah the Hittite in David sending him to the front of the battle that he might lose his life. Here is David in this awful dilemma. He has sinned against the Lord. He cries for restoration of joy. He cries for forgiveness. He prays that the Lord will uphold him. And then he says, I'll tell others of your greatness, Lord. I will tell sinners. the way of salvation, and sinners will be converted unto thee. I will seek by the grace of God to undo some of the terrible harm I have done and the terrible injury that I have caused to thy holy name. And you know something? I believe that when someone is saved and fails and repents, that person in the restoration of joy has double joy. You see, David knew what the joy of salvation was really like. When he was saved and walking with God, he was full of joy. We might say he was bubbling over with joy. God called him a man after his own heart. He was so close to the Lord. And then when he sinned, he lost that joy. And he appreciated what he had lost. Only someone who has known true and deep joy can fully appreciate what that joy is like. You lose it, you're very miserable, more miserable even than an unsaved person. And then when that joy is restored, I tell you, it's sweet. It's sweeter than ever it was before. And it shows the graciousness of God. We wouldn't behave like that towards those who had failed us if we had shown great favor to them and poured much love into their lives. If they turned away from us and let us down and shamed us, we would find it very hard to forgive them. But David knew what forgiveness was really like. He had a double joy. He had a far greater joy, I believe, in restoration than he had ever known before. And so he praised before God. He says, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit then. will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee." There's a work can be done by the restored backslider to witness to the graciousness and mercy and kindness of God. And David was able to do that and could look forward to doing that if you have failed. then you need to repent that you might be restored to God and restored to joy and able to witness afresh to the graciousness and love of the Lord Jesus Christ. But if you're not saved, you don't know true joy. You just know the joy of this world. that's very transient, that's going to end very soon, and you'll be lost forever if you know not Christ as your own and personal Savior. I exhort you, turn to Christ if you know Him not. He's able to save. He's willing to save. He says to us, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Let's unite our hearts together in a word of prayer. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you that David was restored. Lord, we see how much He failed, and we recognize that we who are Thy people often fail Thee, but we bless Thee that there is forgiveness with Thee that Thou mayest be feared. May we each one say, restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with Thy free spirit, so that we might reach out to others and tell them of the glorious and wonderful and magnificent Savior that we have found, and how willing He is to save, and how willing He is to forgive. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for spending some time with us today around the Word of God. For further information visit our website at ltbs.tv. We look forward to joining with you next time as we seek to let the Bible speak once again.