And tonight again, we turn in the word of God to read that word together. 2 Timothy 2, and then Psalm 51, and we'll stand together. First from 2 Timothy 2. Paul here giving his final exhortation to his protege, his son in the faith, Timothy, and reminding him of the kind of life, the kind of holy and chaste life he is called to live as a follower of Jesus Christ, and also here, of course, as a minister of the gospel. Beginning at verse 19. Nevertheless, the solid foundation of God stands having this seal. The Lord knows those who are his and let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity. But in a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also wood and clay and some for honor and some for dishonor. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and the master prepared for every good work. Flee also youthful lusts, but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. But avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife. Serve to the Lord, must not quarrel, but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient. In humility, correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance so that they may know the truth, that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will. Some of those themes of the necessity of repentance and the snares of the devil and the fleeing of lusts are all behind Psalm 51, David's great and famous confession of sin. Psalm 51, to the chief musician, Psalm of David when Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone into Bathsheba. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your lovingkindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies. Blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions. My sin is always before me. Against you and you only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight, that you may be found just when you speak and blameless when you judge. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part you will 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 hear joy and gladness that the bones that you have broken may rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me by your generous spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners shall be converted to you. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, the God of my salvation. And my tongue shall sing aloud of your righteousness, O Lord. Open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth your praise. For you do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it. You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart. These, O God, you will not despise. Do good in your pleasure to Zion. Build the walls of Jerusalem. Then you shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering. And then they shall offer bowls on your altar." And this is, again, the word of the Lord. We turn in the preaching of the Word to Psalm 51. You may have noticed a few weeks ago that we finished a series through 1 and 2 Samuel. I did preach a few weeks ago what I would call an occasional sermon on a text, Psalm 146. But we'll turn for a few weeks to Psalm 51. Perhaps you could entitle this short series a detailed study of the doctrine of repentance. the doctrine of repentance, what it means to repent of sin. As I was preaching through 2 Samuel, and we came to 2 Samuel chapter 11, Pastor Mooney and I were talking a little bit about this, and I had thought to perhaps break that series after David's sin with Bathsheba and move to Psalm 51 and then go back to the 1st Samuel series. Instead, we will revisit a little bit of that narrative tonight and we'll go to Psalm 51, obviously after the finishing of that whole series. But the two are closely connected together. There were a number of reasons why I thought to pause in the middle of the 1 and 2 Samuel series to preach from Psalm 51. Not only was it pertinent to the flow of the narrative and give something of the heart of David, but there's a second reason that isn't quite so easy. And it is the following, that the subject matter in 2 Samuel 11 and Psalm 51 is sadly and has sadly been again in our pastoral ministry here at Covenant in the last year, not an uncommon thing. And it should be. The themes that are found in David's fall The confession of sin in Psalm 51. We have not been immune here at Covenant to the stumblings, temptations, or lusts of the flesh. And we ought to be careful when we think about that. We are living in a highly sensual age where every one of us should take heed lest he or she fall. We're living in a culture that has cast off all restraint. There is no modesty. There is no holiness. Especially when it comes to sexual sins. There's nakedness. There are parades through our streets of open perversity. There's social media, there's the smartphone, which is, I've preached about this before, this remarkable tool that can help us in 10,000 ways and seems to, at the same time, destroy us as a sort of, as I've described it before, an auto-configuring idol that will serve you up whatever your heart desires as fast as you desire it. and is, for many, appears to be, when it comes to sexual sin, something like Russian roulette with a completely loaded revolver. These things, because they surround us, make us think that they're perhaps not as bad as they are, but they're terrible. And it's not just the church that recognizes unraveling of our present age. I was reading a while ago that colleges for their freshmen, New York University, for example, for the freshman incoming class, is offering counseling for sexual addiction. I don't like that phrase, but the point is, these are not believers, they're recognizing some sort of disintegration. of society and life to the point that there's no capacity to even start, let alone finish school. Again, we'd be fools to think that any one of us was immune, and we should assume that no one is. But there are principles that are clear in the scriptures that are falling by the wayside. In the church, Hebrews 13.4, marriage is honorable above all, and the bed undefiled. Bible has a high view of sexuality, holy sexuality. But there's another phrase, but fornicators and adulterers God will judge. The simple reality is the living God has set bounds, holy bounds for our behavior. The reality of the church today, and just last week, and this wasn't in our congregation, but just last week, I was by email or phone, within four days, was hearing of four more cases of people in churches here in Greenville and a little farther away. where I have friendships or pastors who are calling me for help. It's just an epidemic of people, church members, professing Christians, falling into sexual sin. Your elders have been thinking and praying about this. And there are repercussions and consequences for the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. As individuals, as families, as a church, unconfessed sin is not just between you and God. It has effect on others. Unmortified sin hurts other people. Achan sin meant no victory for Israel. And in Revelation chapter 2 and 22 and 23 in the seven churches again and again it meant God's judgment on a local congregation. That it's not just private. And all of these things again on my heart brought me to come back to Psalm 51. I preached through Psalm 51 eight or nine years ago here and maybe it's time to come back. Again, it's the 2 Samuel series, 1 and 2 Samuel series. This was on my mind. It's certainly on my mind and heart again. So we turn to a portion of the scriptures that was written. Beautifully, it's filled with the gospel by somebody who was repenting of such things. Now in that regard, it doesn't cover just one category of sin. The occasion for this psalm is that category. But I'm hoping that as we hear the preaching of the word from Psalm 51, that we will learn again what it means to repent of sin. What true repentance is. And learn what we should do when we find ourselves Entangled again in an old sin and again. I have one category. It's the category that opens up the inscription of this psalm For some of you it might be another category that I have no idea about that you're struggling with the Lord only knows but the Word of God deals with this and in Psalm 51 is a remarkable gift from the Lord that takes us by the hand and and it leads the sinner back to God. It teaches us how to go to Him, what to say, and what we should pray for and expect as we turn from sin to God. And so we study it together. The background of the psalm, I already said it, but it's in the inscription. We'll start there, and as we look at that, we'll look at the reality and entanglements of sexual impurity. and then all sins. Then we're going to look at the three elements that open the prayer of this sinner, David, who's fallen into this great sin. And then we will learn some things from three concluding applications. So the reality and entanglements that lead to this prayer The way David begins his prayer, conscious of what he's done, suddenly conscious of what he's done, we'll see why. And then some lessons we can learn for our own devotional life and walk with Christ. A little bit of background, how does David get to the point that he wrote Psalm 51? It's right there, to the chief musician. The Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone into Bathsheba. David writes this psalm after having committed a series of sins that would, in a sense, real sense, lead to the dissolution of the kingdom. There is something about David's sin with Bathsheba that shows up with Absalom, and then rebellion of Sheba, and then Solomon's sins with his many wives, and then the division of the kingdom. There's sort of a unrolling, slow moving rather, train wreck that results from these sins. His first sin was that he was on the time, it was the time of the year that kings go to war and David didn't go to war and instead he was on his rooftop, you remember, and he was lusting after his neighbor's wife, coveting. And that coveting we saw some months ago as we studied the narrative in 2 Samuel led to adultery. And David sinned greatly against Bathsheba and against Shariah her husband. And it wasn't just that, there were these entanglements immediately attached to this sin. Not only did he commit sin with Bathsheba, but it led to a pregnancy. Entanglements. That pregnancy led him to lie, cheat, steal, and murder. And even before we get to the reverberations of this in his family, In David's life, a look turns into a nightmare. A rebellion against the Lord from a man, this is important, who is described in the scriptures as a man after God's own heart. This all happens from a heart of a man who would say, the Lord is my Savior. And who we would believe loved the Lord. It's very sobering. We should humble all of that. That one look brought David also into a place of danger before the presence of God. As a matter of fact, the Mosaic law twice indicates that David would be worthy of the death penalty for the sins that he had committed. He had committed adultery and he had committed murder. He had committed adultery against Bathsheba and her husband Uriah and then he killed Uriah by a subterfuge. He had spiritual consequences immediately. We read about that in another psalm where David describes that when he was silent, his bones grew old. Psalm 32, through my groaning all the day long, for day and night your hand was heavy on me. My vitality was turned to the drought of summer. We know we have a long period in David's life until Nathan comes to him that he somehow is able to live with himself without confessing the sin to God. This brings a distance between David and God and a turmoil of the soul. No freedom of conscience. And then we have in his family and his kingdom, I mentioned Absalom and the rebellion of Sheba later, but I didn't mention earlier that Amnon And Tamar, the horrific assault, sexual assault of Amnon, of his sister, flowing from this. Then the rebellion of Absalom. Then later rebellion. There's no true lasting recovery in David's household from the effects of these sins. And the inscription of this psalm and what we know from the narrative in Samuel should teach you a few things already about the danger of impurity. I have a friend who used to sit in these pews, who is now in a jail here in the upstate of South Carolina for very serious sins. And he just began by looking, just by looking. David began by looking. And the scriptures warn us very plainly against the great danger of impurity, the power of lust, sexual morality, of idolatry, of hatred in the heart. And the setting for this psalm is all of that disaster. Let me deal with the present age. Some people are probably saying no one thinks that way anymore. That's the problem actually. The accusation against the church is that we have an antiquated morality that's repressive. If you're thinking like a Christian, how would you answer that? What would you say? Who made you? Who set the bounds of your existence? Who designed your body? Who made marriage? Who's the law giver? And he speaks so clearly in his word. None of it is complicated, actually. It's not only clear, it's a simple command. You shall not commit adultery, fornication, adultery, sexual sin, let it not even be named among you. I mean, if you read Paul's epistles, it's not a letter that he can write where he doesn't bring this up. He said, if you have the Holy Spirit, how could you do such a thing? The Scriptures are clear. God speaks clearly. The Creator who made man male and female is the Creator. You are the creature. He's the law giver. And He's also the one, Ecclesiastes 12, who will one day bring every work, whether secret or public, into judgment. Nothing is hid from Him. He's the designer of human life. He sets the bounds of our sexuality, and we simply obey what he says. We don't always obey, but we're called to obey, and it's not actually complicated. The clarity of the scriptures is unmistakable on these questions. Sexual expression is found within the covenant of marriage between one man and one woman. Anything else is a sin against God. Rebellion, in this regard, is unbridled lust, and that's what took over David in the scriptures on every page paint this to be a serious act of sin against the Lord. Lamech, early in the scriptures on the line of Cain was known for sexual immorality. In Noah's day the problem was sexual immorality before the flood. We have Ham and Canaan and sexual sin in Noah's family. We have Abimelech and Sarah and we even have Abimelech recognizing that he could have committed a sin when he took Sarah into his household. And even the pagans had bounds, let alone the people of God. We know that in Exodus 32, Israel sins in the golden calf episode. And later on with the Moabites, the rebellion included rampant sexual sin. And every time brought the judgment of God. The law of God is clear. You shall not commit adultery is clear. I just said that a moment ago. Leviticus 20 is clear. Matthew 5 is clear. If a man looks at a woman to lust after her heart, he's committed adultery. And we could go on and on. Again, we're not dealing with a set of circumstances in the scripture that are not clear, they're not complex. The world says it's very complex, not complex. The penalties for these sins in the Old Testament, in the Old Testament were death. In the New Testament, hell, eternal death. This is again the straightforward language of the scriptures from the beginning to the end. Revelation 21, talking about heaven. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable murder, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in a lake of fire which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. I think David knew this too. David would have known the law of God and the word of God precepts of God, like we, probably most of you here aren't going to argue with what I just said. His thinking and his acting, however, were very much out of step. Maybe he was suppressing the truth in unrighteousness, surely he was justifying his own sins. And in order for God to break through Nathan the prophet had to go to him until through the parable that he told David and the words he said, David, you are the man. David finally confessed his sin. The word was needed. And one of the things we need to do is go back to the word and just read what the word says about our conduct. Have it hidden in our hearts. Meditate on it. And think over it. But there's more than that for true conviction of sin. We need to pray for the Holy Spirit. If you know the outlines and words of the law of God, but your conscience is dead, well, you just keep doing what you're doing. As a matter of fact, Paul says in Romans 7, if that's your spiritual situation, the more you hear God's commands, the more you're going to sin. Because of the principle of rebellion, unless subdued by the Holy Spirit of God, we'll only rise up. And so word and prayer, and word and prayer. How do we get to this place? It's because we've lost the fear of God. David understood this. Psalm 36, ironically he wrote these words. An oracle within my heart concerning the transgressions of the wicked. There is no fear of God before his eyes. He flatters himself in his own eyes when he finds out his iniquity and when he hates. Can't speak honestly with himself and he doesn't fear God. The words of his mouth are wickedness and deceit. He ceases to be wise and do good. He devises wickedness on his bed. He sets himself in a way that is not good. He does not abhor evil. And there's no fear of God, even if you know the word. And if you grew up hearing all of the things I just said about sexual morality, and you don't change, then there's other problems. You need to pray for the Holy Spirit to give you the fear of God. The Holy Spirit, who Jesus said, when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and judgment. You need to pray for a divine act in your heart that your affections and your conduct would match the truth of God's Word. But that's not what David had done. He did the opposite. He fell into the sin, right? So one of the mercies of God in the Word is that He not only warns us not to sin, but He does a second thing. that when we have sinned, he's willing to teach us what to do next. You need to understand that mercy. Not only warns us against us, but if we have, Psalm 51 takes us by the hand and it answers the question, now what do I do? I blatantly sinned against God. And perhaps you're here like David and you can identify with him. You've sunk deep into sin. What do you do when the word comes to your door, like Nathan came to David, when the word uncovers your sin? What do you do when the Almighty shines a spotlight on your life and someone finds out what you've really been doing? And the whole house of cards collapses. Do you hide? Adam and Eve hid, remember that? Tried to run from God, that's futile. David, in the mercy of God, having sinned, also by the power of the Spirit and a mysterious, gracious condescension of God, pens this psalm to teach us the way back. So what does he do? He prays. Psalm 51 is a prayer. It's an urgent prayer of an impure sinner. Tonight we want to focus on just one element of that prayer. In the coming weeks, we'll just keep studying more elements of that prayer. And they will teach us, as I said earlier, something that we can call the doctrine of repentance, what it means to turn from sin back to God. And so we'll look at three elements in the text. We'll look at verses 1 through 6. And moving on from the inscription, we see that David first does something surprising. Not like Adam, he goes to God. Interesting. Not like Adam, he runs to the Lord. As a matter of fact, the first thing he does is says, have mercy upon me, oh God. He's clearly pivoted and approached the throne of God. which is the first thing that we do when we recognize that we've sinned. We don't run, minimize, or hide. We turn and first to God. We have dealings with the Lord. Adam hid. Why did David turn? Look what he did. says about God. Well, we know a lot of things about God. We know His moral purity and His holiness. We know that from His law. We reviewed a little bit of that a moment ago. We know He's holy and we know He's powerful. We know He's omnipotent, unbounded in His power. We know that He is holy, powerful, and just. By no means will He clear the guilty. And that He cannot look upon sin. Sin in the presence of God, there's an incompatibility. When David Abba and Abihu went into sanctuary of God into the tabernacle, unclean. They were struck down by the holiness of God. But David approaches God. He goes to God. And how does he do that? The only way that you can approach God after you've sinned is by an appeal to His mercy. And the first words of this prayer are, have mercy on me, O God, which contain in them an implicit confession. But more than that, they contain a conviction about who God is. It's an appeal to mercy. It's the first word of David's mouth three times or a single theme. It's not, first, I have sinned. He'll say that in a moment in verses three and following. But he has convictions about who God is. And the language is striking. Have mercy on me, oh God. Next phrase, according to your loving kindness. First word about God, mercy. Second word about God, loving kindness. It's remarkable. He's done horrible things. Conviction number three, according to the multitude of your tender mercies. This in itself would be enough for meditation for a lifetime. That there's a possibility that you could do what David did, and you could go in prayer, and you could begin to describe him as merciful, full of loving kindness, and a multitude of tender mercies. There's so much gospel hope here already, it's astonishing and instructive. First thing, as we said about the holiness of God a moment ago, if this wasn't true, it'd be over. For all of us. If this wasn't true about the essential character of our, there'd be no way to confess. There'd be no way to approach. There'd be no remedy. There'd be no hope. Mercy. Sin deserves judgment, but God shows mercy. Loving kindness, faithful covenant love. When He makes promises concerning redemption, He will keep them and not break them. Multitude of your tender mercies. Language in the Psalms like, He remembers that we are but dust, a breath of wind that passes away. His place remembers it no more. The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting. But there's something about God, slow to anger, abundant in mercy, forgiving, iniquity, transgression, and sin, that this is the way that God reveals himself to a recalcitrant, rebellious humanity. And David says, I will go and I will hang on to who he is. What is repentance unto life? Our catechism has a great summary of what the Bible teaches. a saving grace whereby a sinner out of a true sense of his sin, and we'll get to that in a moment, but there's another beautiful phrase that you should never forget, and an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ. Repentance will never happen if you only believe you've sinned. Repentance comes with two convictions. I have sinned, and God shows mercy. They can't be separated. Without the two of them, you won't repent. David knows this about God. What's also interesting is he must have learned it before he sinned. In other words, there's something in David, and if you read the rest of his writings, you know his life, surely he already knew this in some sense about the Lord and he was coming to it in a new way. But from all of this, we have a first principle of confession. That we need to believe bedrock truths about God that make confession even possible. Voltaire, the French philosopher, you know one of the ways he made fun of Christianity? He said, God forgives, that's his job. And what he was saying is you Christians have invented somebody named God because you have a problem with your conscience, which you shouldn't have, because there is no law or purpose in the universe, in essence. But you invented somebody to forgive your sins so you would feel better. So if you just got rid of your idea of sin, you wouldn't need your God to do the job that you need him to do. He mocked God. But God actually reveals himself in his essential character of glory as exactly one who forgives iniquity and transgression and sin. That's what he said to Moses. It's a blasphemy to make that a mockery. Mercy, loving kindness and tender mercies. Calvin, David uses these words because he's convinced that a mercy of an ordinary kind would not suffice for so great a sinner as he was, but God is filled with mercy of an extraordinary kind. God, as Paul would write, who is rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, raised us up together with Him, made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And then get this, that in the ages to come, what are we going to be doing in heaven? he might show the exceeding greatness of his, exceeding riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. So that in the age to come, the mercy that we see in some reality now would grow ever bigger through the endless ages and become the subject of our boundless praise. David sees something of this in God and so he runs to God and this is who God is. And so I preach to you the mercy, the loving kindness, the multitude of the tender mercies of our God. And to confess your sin, you need to be convinced of these mercies. Why is he coming asking for mercy? Second thing is because he also has an inverse and opposite conviction about himself. And he needs mercy. And that's where we get to his actual confession of sin. He asks for cleansing and forgiveness. And he does it throughout the psalm. He does it intensely in verse 2, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. He does it again in verse 7, purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. He makes three requests of God in the first verses. that help us recognize how seriously he considers his condition to be. Blot out my transgressions. He needs someone to wipe out, to erase. Paul would use the language in Colossians 2, the handwriting of the law which was against us needs to be erased. The penalty, the guilt, the charges, the conviction, the judgment. He says, Lord, blot out my transgressions. Erase. Wipe them out. My open defiance of your clear standards, Lord, blot this out. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. And here, there's the idea of the defilement of sin. That sin needs cleansing. Washing, and that's why baptism is such a beautiful picture of salvation. And when he says not only wash, he says wash me thoroughly, and the Hebrews actually multiply the washings of my iniquities. Scrub me clean, Lord, it's defiled me. And then again, washing again, and cleanse me from my sin, because it has defiled me. And sin here is an offense against a standard. Transgression, open defiance, crossing the line. Iniquity, wrongdoing that brings guilt. Sin, the breaking of God's holy law, His standard. He's not holding anything back. He's saying, this is what I've done, Lord. This is why I'm coming to You for mercy. It's not immediately obvious from this psalm, but there is something that David is doing here. He's asking for, he's confessing particular sins. He's been caught having committed murder and adultery. Nathan's come to him. The spotlight is clear, and when we put the inscription and 2 Samuel and the psalm together, what David is actually doing something, what our confession says is part of repentance. He's confessing particular sins particularly. Or what I've been charged with I've done. It's a transgression. It's iniquity. It's sin. God is a standard. I have broken it. This is what you have to own when you confess your own sins. Here's what you have to own. God is a standard. I have broken it. This is sin. Sin is impure. It has defiled my whole being. It is attached to me. You ever get poison ivy, children? What happens within minutes is that urashol, the oil in it, attaches to your skin and you cannot wash it off anymore. And if you're allergic to it like I am, it's over even before you knew you had it. It defiles, it attaches to you, it produces its effects. David says sin is like this. Only divine power, he recognizes, can remove its pollution. He needs God to act with divine power to remove the guilt, the offensiveness, and the defilement. And so he's asking God to cleanse. In repentance, he not only looks for mercy, but he knows there's power. This leads to the second principle of true confession. Already implied it, but only God can forgive sins, which is why he's going to God. You remember when the paralytic was healed and he was lowered down and first thing Jesus said, as he looked at the paralyzed man, everyone wanted Jesus to heal him. First thing he said, his son, your sins are forgiven you. And what did they say? Remember the scribes reasoned in their hearts who can forgive sins, but God alone. And then Jesus said, well, if you're wondering if the son of man has power on earth to forgive sins, watch this, rise, take up your bed and walk. Now you know if I can forgive sins because I'm God. If you sin, you go to God because you've offended God, you've broken his standard, but you go to God because he is the only power in the universe to cleanse you from that sin. It requires supernatural intervention. And it also means that if you refuse to cry out to God for mercy, you will forever remain unclean because you have no power to cleanse yourself. What is one of the reasons why we don't pray like this? Because we're not convinced that it's really that bad with us. I've just done a little thing. It's just a little piece of my life. No, it has defiled you entirely. And the only one who can remove the metastasis of sin is the living God. Third element, he completely acknowledges his sin. David does what most people refuse to do, verses 3-6. He has a deep personal awareness of his sin. He says, I acknowledge my transgressions. My sin is always before me. And then he says, it's not someone else's problem in this, it's mine. Look at the personal pronouns. My transgressions, my sin, always before me. And then he switches. to say that the basic problem that sin creates is that my sin is against you. What happens when we get caught in sin? Oh no, relationships start falling apart. Life is a mess. If you're gambling, you're out of money. If it's sexual sin and you have a relationship, you've broken that relationship. I mean, there's a million horizontal effects of sin. David, I have come to understand at the heart of my problem, that I've sinned against a holy God. A holy God who offers mercy, I've sinned against His mercy. It's not the consequences that make my life hard, it's that I've offended God. I've transgressed against Him, I've committed iniquity against Him, I've sinned against Him, I've openly defiled His standards. This is why he says in verse four, you are just when you speak and blameless when you judge. He says, not only have I sinned against you, but your word against me through Nathan the prophet is absolutely true. Lord, I submit I have offended you and you have indicted me and I have no arguments. Oh, that we would always come to this. How many times have we not fought in our hearts and minds against God and tried to minimize our sin, minimize His holiness, minimize our confession, and try and get out a side door? There are no side doors. There are none. The problem is between you and the living God. Why don't we want to do this? Because to accept this would be to accept who we really are. At the deepest level apart from grace. And that's where David goes deeper. Verse five. Behold I was brought forth in iniquity and sin my mother conceived me. Behold you desire truth in the inward parts. In the hidden part you will make me to know wisdom. Lord I have come to understand that this problem that I have goes right to the core of the beginning of my existence that I came into the world as a son of Adam by nature, rebelling against you, carrying the defilement and guilt of sin. That is an ownership of the depth of the problem that goes beyond what we like to say so often when we hurt somebody, which is, I'm sorry, can we move on? No, it is an awareness that I began this way, Lord. And what I've done, and the defilement it's caused, has only added to my problem. It's only added. It's not just a little problem, but it runs deep within. It's tied all the way back to my conception, to the heart of my being. He's not excusing his sin here. He's confessing the doctrine of original sin on top of his actual sin. That he wasn't born innocent, but unrighteous and corrupt. But if he traces the headwaters, what he's really saying is this, God this sin came from me, it's from inside me, it belongs to me, it came from my heart. It started here. And what you want inside, verse six, truth in the inward parts, and the hidden part to make me known wisdom, I know, and it's not what I've done. Every sin you commit testifies to this basic reality. I'm a sinful creature in the grain, apart from grace, in the grain of who I am. Calvin again, we have no adequate idea of the domination of dominion of sin until we begin to conceive of extending to every part of the soul and acknowledge that both the heart and mind of man have become utterly corrupt and defiled, leaving us guilty before God. One sin declares, apart from the sovereign redeeming, rescuing, soul-changing grace of God, I would only produce sin and rebellion. And David here has come to a position of total humility before God, which is a very hopeful place to be. Some concluding applications. First Psalm 51 is a sober warning on how quickly things can go wrong. David is the man after God's own heart, the sweet psalmist of Israel. He's the one who God makes covenant with, the one who gives promises. Your son will sit on the throne forever. The Messiah will come from your family. He's the one who walked with God as a shepherd boy in the fields, who wrote Psalm 23. Spurgeon, the sin of David is recorded as a warning for all. Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. Be humble. about your capacities, even as a believer in Jesus Christ, that there's a remnant of sin within you that's stronger than you like to think it is. It's not something we need to be afraid of because of the Holy Spirit. It's real. It's real in David's life. Don't underestimate your capacity to wander. If you're playing games with sins right now, especially sexual sins, listen carefully. God sent Nathan to David. God is now speaking to you. That's why the psalm is here, in order that it would echo through history and give the way for a sinner to come back to God. It's David's heart cry from the wretched depths of his own sins. It's his public humiliation for the ages. But it's also the inspired Word of God. And again, I'll say what I said at the beginning. The way in which God Himself, by the inspiration of His Holy Spirit, takes you by the hand and says, this is how you come back to me. This is how I will lead you back to myself. And it begins, repentance begins with a simple confession. It's two part. What I believe, that you are full of mercy and loving kindness. Lord, I believe that according to the multitude of your tender mercies, that you will forgive my sins. And David understood that in the old covenant, we know it because of the cross and the glory of our Savior Jesus Christ. Sealing all the promises of God, yes and amen, and the power and love of a mediator who laid down his life for the sheep. It's unchangeable truth about God. So you go to him believing and then confessing. Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions. My sin I have not hidden from you. Against you and you only have I sinned. And how about this line? And done this evil in your sight. Don't argue, confess. Begin now. You know, in your devotional life, it's interesting, one of the things I remember from my childhood, my mom always taught me, my mother always said, Peter, when you pray to the Lord, always ask for the forgiveness of your sins. That's what Jesus taught us. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors every day. Make this part of the patterns of your daily dealings with God. Confess. Against you and you only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight. Great sins. There are sins that are smaller and greater. Take them all to the Lord. Confess what He says about you. That you're a sinner. Tell Him that you don't even understand how bad it is. Ask Him like David does in Psalm 139 to search your heart and see if there's more. How can you do this? Why do Christians do this? Because we also remember a promise that God gives. That if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us. What would David ask for? This is Apostle John, more than a thousand years later. John says, He is faithful and just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, everything, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. How foolish and proud it would be if we all didn't get on our knees tonight and ask God for forgiveness, especially in light of His mercy. of Him holding our hand, bring us back to His throne, proclaiming His mercy, loving kindness, and promising that if we confess, He will forgive. So run to Him. Let's pray. Lord, our God, we are mindful of our capacity to underestimate our sins. justify them, to suppress them and forget them, instead of to confess them and bring them to you in the hope of your mercy, which you have declared to be part of your glorious, holy, transcendent, eternal being. That you are a God who forgives iniquity and transgression and sin. That you're slow to anger and you abound in mercy. We pray that you would help us to follow your leading tonight. And that if we are caught in a sin, that we would confess it to you. We pray in the coming weeks that you would teach us the rest of the road of repentance. But Lord, we pray that tonight it would begin with honest dealings before your throne. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. But before we go, receive the blessing of the Lord. Peace to the brethren in love with faith from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus in sincerity. Amen.