Telling the Truth to God

David is effectively saying, I missed the mark, the standard of God. I went way off the target. We go to God expecting to be forgiven with language like, Lord, you know I came close. I aimed it in the right direction. No, the first steps toward forgiveness include admission saying what you've probably heard people in our own world who can never quite bring themselves to say things like, I did that and I was wrong.

If you ever see that on the news, you're going to faint, you're going to fall over. A clean heart, who doesn't want that? But most people focus on hiding, covering up and suppressing their guilt because a clean heart eludes them.

It eludes them because they're trying on their own. Since all of us are sinners by nature, what do we do about our sin? Well, the Bible uses the word repentance. But what does real repentance look like? Repentance is more than just admitting that you've messed up. And it's more than just saying you're sorry. We're going to find out what true repentance looks like today as we examine the life of King David.

This is Wisdom for the Heart. And here's Stephen Davey with the message that he's calling, Telling the Truth to God. According to Time Magazine in 1970, a woman by the name of Catherine Power was a university student in Boston. And she was actually one of the leaders of a radical national student strike force.

And at one point in time, she and other students decided to raise money to buy arms for the Black Panthers by robbing a bank. Cathy's role in this was to actually drive the getaway car. When it came time for the robbery, it wasn't long before it all sort of went awry and fell apart.

A silent alarm had been triggered. And a policeman happened to be nearby. A gunfight ensued. And in that gunfight, that policeman was killed.

The students fled in their car with Cathy behind the wheel. And they would go into hiding. And for Cathy, it would become 23 years of life in hiding. She would be listed as armed and dangerous. And you may very well have seen her picture in the post office on one of those FBI most wanted sheets of paper. She moved as far away from Boston as she could. In the States, she went to the other coast and settled into Oregon. She changed her name and identity to Alice Metzinger. She married, had a son, opened a restaurant, and kept everything secret known only to her.

If you could have seen her from what I read, you might never have thought she would have been involved in that. Twenty-three years later, after that robbery, riddled with secret fears, physically tired, inwardly tormented by guilt, chronically depressed, to the utter shock of her family, her friends, her clients, her neighbors, her world, she did the only thing she could think of to try and end her agony. She turned herself in and revealed to her world that she was not Alice Metzinger.

She was Catherine Power. Newspapers reported her ultimate motive for finally telling the truth. She said, and I quote, I was tired of living with shame and hiddenness and guilt. It was time to tell the truth. Probably one of the most famous passages of scripture in the Old Testament is that moment when David, the singer king, told the truth.

I invite you to that text. It's Psalm chapter 51. David is out of hiding now. Nathan has exposed him. He could have resented that and retreated. Instead, he deals with his sin and he tells the truth to God and to his world. What was probably a private poem will become very soon in his own heart and mind, clearly something he wants Israel to sing and everyone who follows God. I've got to tell you, as I prepared to work through this psalm with you, in fact, I came across a statement written almost parenthetically by Charles Spurgeon, the expositor pastor of the 1800s in London, England that I have so admired and his treasury of David, a massive three volume commentary on all of the psalms. He got to Psalm 51 and he quit. He actually stopped.

He just couldn't bring himself to begin to explore it. He said there's just too much here in this psalm. Finally, he picked it up and even though he said this is too freighted with divine truth, I wrote my commentary. But then he adds this, to try and preach on this psalm.

Ah, where is he who having attempted it can do none other than blush at his defeat? Well, with that encouraging word, let's start. Let me give you five words. We're not going to cover everything.

In fact, we're not even really going to get to most of it. Let me give you five words that come to my mind as I look at the genre of this psalm and the basic idea. The first word is the word petition. That will cover verses one and two. David writes in verse one, have mercy on me, oh God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy. You pick up right away, don't you, that David is approaching God on the basis of steadfast love. That's covenant love, loving kindness. A covenant of love saturated with and supported by and invited by mercy.

If you're older in the faith, you already know this. Let me remind those of you who may be new in the faith that grace in the Bible is when God gives you something you don't deserve. Mercy is when God does not give you what you do deserve. David isn't coming to God saying, hey, I want a fair shake.

No, I want mercy. David is guilty of lust and deception in this regard, adultery, conspiracy to murder, hypocrisy, lying upon lying, abuse of power, and on and on and on. He tried to cover his tracks, you know, kind of change his name and his identity, but he's only dug the pit deeper still. And now David realizes that apart from God's mercy, he doesn't stand a chance of ever renewing communion with his God. So he's not asking God for what he deserves. Right at the very outset, this petition is based upon mercy.

But he dares to ask this. Notice the first three requests that are kind of bound up in this petition. First, blot out, you might circle these verbs, blot out my transgressions. Secondly, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Thirdly, cleanse me from sin.

The verb blot out refers to erasing the lines of a ledger or perhaps a parchment where they would rub it out or maybe turn it sideways and write a brand new text. David is effectively saying, Lord, erase the record of my sin. I want you to start writing a new record.

I don't want to see the old one. Wash me. That verb can refer to laundering dirty clothing, effectively saying, Lord, clean off the stains of the garments of my life. Cleanse me. Here's a verb where David isn't just talking about cleaning off some stains that got on his clothing or maybe changing an entry in his diary or rubbing it out. He's actually bringing us deeper here. He's talking about the fact that his very person needs cleansing. Remember, he's been caught red-handed.

His hands are stained deep red in his heart. David makes a petition. Let me give you another word.

It's the word admission, admission. In fact, you might circle the many times just in the outset of this song where he uses personal pronouns. Look back at verse one. Have mercy on me. Blot out my transgressions. Verse two, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin.

Verse three, for I know my transgressions, my sin is always in front of me. Have you ever noticed on the news when somebody's arrested or maybe they're being moved to a police van or from a police van into the courtroom and the cameras are out there that they hop out of that van and they rush into the courtroom and they take their jacket and they do this? Or they take their hands and do this. They blot it out.

Why? They don't want to be seen. They don't want to be identified with what the news is reporting of this crime because of their shame. David here is effectively pulling away his jacket. He's putting down his hands.

He's literally turning his face toward the penetrating holy gaze of God and saying that there's no doubt, Lord, it's me. It's me. Admission is critical to forgiveness. This is my sin.

I did it. No excuses. This is someone who ever hopes to be forgiven and restored a communion with God as a believer and primarily this is out of that kind of context. This is a believer confessing.

We want that kind of restoration. We can't go to God and say, well, Lord, now you know how I am. You know my personality. You know my besetting sin. You know what my childhood was like and my parents, God bless them.

You know all about my low-paying job and the difficulties I've had. You know about all those people that work around me that are pagan to the core. Lord, all that stuff made me sin. The person isn't confessing anything who says stuff like that.

In fact, not only is he excusing himself, he's actually making God take the blame. You gave me my family. You gave me my personality. You gave me that job.

You gave me my world. Lord, look at what you made me do. See, David here is doing the exact opposite.

He's not blaming his heredity, his personality, his society, some kind of disability. In fact, notice verse 3 again. He says, these are my transgressions. The word for transgression refers to somebody crossing a forbidden boundary, going into forbidden territory. We use that expression to this day, only we say it like this, I crossed the line. There's no line. You just know you crossed it. You went from where you could be or should be to where you shouldn't be. Maybe you've done that recently with your words or your actions or your thoughts.

You know in your heart you're crossing a line into forbidden territory. David goes on to admit in verse 3, the latter part, he says, my sin is ever before me. The word for sin is khatath. It means to miss the mark. It means to fall short. He takes that out of the world of an archer who fires away an arrow from his bow and that arrow falls far short of the target or perhaps it goes wide left or right or maybe sails over to completely misses the target. David is effectively saying, I missed the mark, the standard of God. I went way off the target. We go to God expecting to be forgiven with language like, Lord, you know, I came close. I aimed it in the right direction.

No, the first steps toward forgiveness include admission, saying what you've probably heard people in our own world who can never quite bring themselves to say things like, I did that and I was actually wrong. If you ever see that on the news, you're going to faint. You're going to fall over. Petition admission. Let me give you another word, the word origin. In fact, this is where he goes a little deeper, in fact, a lot deeper for us. Verse 5, behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. He's not saying his parents were wrong, doing something sinful. He's not further suggesting that his mother perhaps in sin bore him, perhaps out of wedlock.

That's not what he's saying. He's addressing the issue of original sin that inherited sin nature. And he's not only saying then, I have sinned.

He's going deeper. He's saying, I am a sinner. He's admitting not only did I do things that were sinful, but you need to know I'm actually sinful. I'm a sinner, even conceived as it were, tainted with the corrupt nature of sin. One author wrote that David here is actually laying on himself the blame of a corrupted nature instead of just a few corrupted acts. David says the real problem here is me. Again, that runs contrary, doesn't it, to much of what we hear. Maybe we've heard it coming from our own lips.

Have you heard people, maybe back to the news flash or the news report? Somebody says, oh, I did that, but that wasn't really me. I killed that guy with a knife, but it wasn't me holding the knife.

Well, who was it then? Tell me when it isn't you, because I want to avoid you. And when it's really you, then I'll hang around you. I know I did something bad, but you don't know me.

I'm really good. Or that just wasn't me. David actually says here what I did revealed what I am. I'm a sinner, tainted at the very first breath with a fallen nature.

That's a genuine confession. Every time we sin, we're proving that we truly inherited Adam's sinful nature, Romans 5.19. Even the Apostle Paul would say it like this, I know that in me dwells no good thing.

He doesn't need self-image courses. He understands that whatever good we do is because we allow the Spirit of God to work through us, and we need to allow him to do that much more often. Whatever bad we do, we do that all by ourselves. We didn't need any help.

That was us. In fact, that's why there are millions of laws reinforcing ten very basic commandments. And we need millions of laws because we're so corrupt and so clever and so adroit, we can find a loophole, we can work our way around it, and so now we've got to close that loophole over there with another law or another set or whatever, and we'll find our way around.

Why? Because we, in our nature, are law breakers. It isn't that we're good and we interrupt that periodically by doing something bad, it's that we're bad and we interrupt that every so often by doing something good.

Have you ever been driving down the interstate and passed a highway patrol car and instinctively put on your brakes? Why did you do that? Because you're a sinner. I mean, we're a sinner. We do that.

I did that recently. The truth is, the problem isn't a speed limit, it isn't any other law. It simply reveals who we are. The problem is our stubbornness and our self-will and our pride that refuses to be controlled even in that area, and a sinful, corrupt nature that is revealed with every new expression of law. David says, not only have I sinned, but I am in my very nature a sinner.

Spurgeon commented on it this way, the fountain of my life is polluted as well as its many streams. Confession requires we view ourselves honestly as God's word has revealed us. The good news is we can be forgiven. And by the way, we wait, don't we? For our final redemption and glorification of our bodies. Paul said we groan for that, we long for that, where we will one day, without that corrupted nature, perfected in holiness forever in our glorified bodies, be able to enjoy Jesus Christ and worshiping him without any selfish interruption, without any self-made stray thought, without any sinful obstruction.

Won't that be great to get past two minutes without having to struggle with who we are? In the meantime, let's learn how to confess as we await that day. Petition, admission, origin, the fourth word is restoration.

Let me highlight for the sake of time just two phrases. Verse 7, he writes, purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. David is directing us toward the priestly practice of blood sacrifice in the tabernacle and ultimately the temple. Hyssop was a small plant, often found growing, still is, out of craggy cliffs, rock, stone walls. Because of its shape and its structure, it was used in these ancient days as a paintbrush. In the ceremonies of the temple, hyssop would be dipped in blood and then used to brush or to sprinkle blood.

In fact, it's mentioned for the very first time in the book of Exodus in chapter 12 and verse 22 where the Israelites are preparing to leave Egypt. They've slain the Passover lamb and God instructs them through Moses to take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood of that Passover lamb and then paint it around their door. David is actually asking God to play the role of priest, invisibly sprinkling his heart by way of atonement.

He's making this profound statement that only blood shed can clean blood stains. He's talking about the most powerful purification that can purify a sinner by the death and bloodshed of an innocent. So what this means is that David is not only writing this personal hymn that's going to be taught at the congregation, but he's actually singing prophetically of a coming day when the final Passover lamb, Jesus Christ, will shed his blood for the complete and final payment of sin and guilt which can reach the heart.

It's up until Jesus Christ, the blood of bulls and goats, can't fully and completely atone for sin. So the apostle Peter is going to pick up on that and he's going to say that Jesus Christ bore in his own body on the tree our sin so that we being dead to sin, that is that the penalty of sin can live right with God. 1 Peter 2.24. The writer of Hebrews will pick up on that and say this. Listen to this and how it goes back to this psalm. Since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, having had our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience.

Isn't that a blessed thing when our conscience is clean through confession? See, David doesn't just want pardon. He wants purity. He wants a clean conscience. He goes even further. He doesn't just want to be purged.

He wants to be renewed. He says here in verse 10, create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me. By the way, that first phrase struck me because of David's choice by means of the Spirit of God of the verb bara. It's the same word used in Genesis chapter 1 where God created the heavens and the earth, the same verb to create. It's a verb that refers to creating not out of existing material, but out of nothing. That's why there's so much heartburn over Genesis chapter 1. You mean he did it out of nothing.

That's why we call it a miracle, by the way. The heavens and the earth weren't the result of the explosion of existing gases which God used. Out of nothing, God created the heavens and the earth. The verb appears again in Genesis chapter 1 in reference to the creation of self-conscious life, the animal kingdom where, again, the creation of species of animals are created, mature, filling the earth out of nothing but God's creative imagination and will and power and word. That verb appears again a little later to talk about the creation of not only self-conscious creatures but God-conscious creatures uniquely.

This is Adam and Eve. So you get this wonderfully encouraging truth here in this verb when he uses the verb, create in me a clean heart. What's he saying then? He's asking for nothing less than a miracle. And he's not saying like we might be tempted to think or say, Lord, I'm going to get my heart back in shape and then I'm going to give it to you and you make out of it a pure heart.

He says, I don't have anything to give you. If you're going to create a pure heart in me, you're going to start from nothing, a miracle of your grace. We often think, well, I sin but now God wants me to get my act together and prove that I'm worthy of going before him to ask for a pure heart. No, he's saying here, Lord, I've got nothing to offer you but sin and in this regard you're going to have to create purity out of nothing and give it to me as your gift of grace. He's effectively admitting this is your creative work you must do in my life.

I've got nothing to offer you. This is good theology. This is what brings wonderful restoration. Petition, admission, origin, restoration, the fifth and final word I'll give you is resolution. In fact, part of genuine confession is what happens after we confess. He desires to live for Christ. Notice the word then in verse 13. David effectively says, okay, here's what I want to do now. Having made my petition, admission, recognizing the origin of my corrupt nature and the fact I have nothing to offer God and I ask for restoration, this creation of a new heart. He says, here's my resolution. Notice. Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will return to you.

Did you notice what he doesn't say? He doesn't say, okay, Lord, now that I'm forgiven, I'm going to make sure I never hang around sinners again. I'm just going to camp out in the temple. I'm going to stay right by the altar. It's safe here.

No. He says, Lord, now that you've done this for me, let me get involved in the lives of sinners and teach them what I've learned about your grace and your mercy and your pardon and your atonement and your forgiveness. In fact, I think I'll write a song about this and I'll give it to the choir master so we can all sing it because in a very real way, it is the testimony of every believer. It is the foundation of hymns that have come and now to the church for generations. As I thought about the music that includes these attributes of petition, admission, creation, restoration, I couldn't help but think of that one which is typically offered to unbelievers but is wonderful for believers, just as I am without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me and that thou bittest me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come. That song works for non-believers who come as guilty sinners by faith to Christ, but it also works for believers who have specific sin in mind, have broken fellowship, and need restored communion.

Listen to another stanza or two. Just as I am and waiting not to rid my soul of one dark blot to thee whose blood can cleanse each spot, O Lamb of God, I come. Just as I am, thou wilt receive.

Isn't that wonderful? Will welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve, because thy promise, I believe, O Lamb of God, I come. I hope the song Steven just read reflects your view of sin, that you'll take it to Christ and find the forgiveness you need. And we can rest in the promise God made that He will forgive and cleanse us from all of our sin when we humbly confess and repent of it. And tomorrow Steven will take us to that account and answer the main question all parents have. Do babies really go to heaven when they die? Please don't miss tomorrow's broadcast of Wisdom for the Heart. ...