Sin Is Ever Before Me

Introduction

Good evening. We have a few here this morning that, this evening that we’re not able to be here this morning. And it’s good to see all of you. Welcome to our visitors. We’re going to talk about a very significant biblical concept tonight that we need to understand and we need to be able to do. And that is the act of repentance. Well, you’ve heard that term before, right? How? How do I repent? One’s introduction into the things of God begins with repentance. Those people who were pierced to their heart on the day of Pentecost asked those disciples who were preaching the message, men and brethren, what shall we do? And the answer was repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

On another occasion, Peter preaches in Acts 3 repent and be converted, in order that your sins might be blotted out, and times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. I think sometimes we’re in such a hurry to get the baptism in its role that we may skip over the equally important act of repentance. A proper grieving in regard to sin, a proper assessment of our condition, and then humbly submitting to God’s righteousness. The heading of Psalm 51 suggests that this particular psalm was written as a result of the sin that took place with Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite in regard to David the king. Psalm 51 is one of what is called penitential psalms. There are seven of them. Psalm 6, Psalm 32, Psalm 38, Psalm 51, Psalm 102, Psalms 130 and 143.

And we’ll be quoting from a few of them tonight. The penitential Psalms, seven of them. And so what we have in Psalm 51 is the confessions of a king. And that story of David and Bathsheba and Uriah, which we referenced in the lesson on modesty recently, is found in your Bibles in 2 Samuel chapter 11 and chapter 12. And one thing becomes immediately apparent not only in this story, but in many Bible stories about its heroes, its characters of faith, and that is that the Bible does not gloss over the sins of its heroes. David stumbled tragically due to his lust and his illicit desire for one to whom he had no right. In 2 Samuel 11 and verse 1, it says, When kings went out to battle, David stayed at home in Jerusalem.

And he’s walking about on the palace, the king’s palace rooftop and overseeing the city below, as he was one of the highest peaks next to the temple, most likely in the city of Jerusalem. And he’s able to look down, and I don’t know the circumstances that led Bathsheba to be bathing in such a way that the king could see her somewhat in proximity to where David was, that he could notice how beautiful she was, and for him to entertain those thoughts for too long, and then to make inquiry, ultimately inviting her into the king’s house, committing the act of adultery, a child being conceived, an attempt to cover it up for a period of time, but involved bringing Uriah back from the battle. But he was of such commitment to his service to the king.

He just felt like he could not have normal sexual relations with his wife, while all of his other faithful companions are out fighting the battle. And so David could not successfully cover up the conception. And so he sends Uriah out to battle with a letter to Joab, which would be the letter that sends Uriah to his own death. As he is placed in the front lines, and Israel withdraws in battle at Joab’s command. And this mighty warrior, who is listed among David’s mighty men in 2 Samuel 23 perishes. I’ve always been intrigued by how 2 Samuel 11 ends when it says the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband. And when the time of mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife, that she bore him a son.

And chapter 11 ends with this ominous note. But the thing that David had done was evil in the sight of the Lord. Later, Nathan the prophet is sent to David and tells him the story about the rich man who had plenty of flocks of his own, but he stole, he took the one little eulam of the poorer individual. And David says, that man who did this thing deserves to die. Correct he was.

Okay. I’ll try to stay closer to this line. So what does David say? I have sinned against the Lord. He acknowledges the sin that he commits. And I know sometimes we look at this story and we think very negatively of David. And rightfully so. I mean, he’s committed a sin of adultery. He has participated in the death of Uriah the Hittite. He has stumbled tragically. But before we go too far down that track, what if we lived in a time when our sins could be told in Scripture? And every misdeed that we’ve done could be laid bare in Scripture for every succeeding generation to see. Think about it in terms of the sins that you’ve committed in your life. Would we want all of those on the written record for all time?

Even the ones that we’ve committed, and this would be even more shameful, would it not? The ones that we’ve committed since we obeyed the gospel. The ones when we were outside, perhaps we didn’t know God’s plan, and we can claim at least we were ignorant in that regard. But now that we’re in Christ, just the ones that we’ve committed since we obeyed the gospel. They’re all there. In written form for other disciples to read. There’s a passage in Acts chapter 8 that deals with Simon the sorcerer, and he believed the message of the kingdom, and he himself was baptized. But he had been a magician, a sorcerer, one who claimed to be somebody great. And yet he saw what Philip could do through the laying on of the apostles’ hands.

And then when he saw the apostles themselves and them lay on hands on people and them receive the Holy Spirit and do things that he could not begin to touch in terms of power and impressiveness. He said, Hey, can I have that? And of course the response was, your heart is not right with God. You have neither heart nor lie or portion in this matter. First of all, he’s not an apostle. Philip didn’t even have this ability to lay on of hands. And he says, Your heart is not right with God. And remember now, he hasn’t committed adultery. He hasn’t murdered anybody. He simply wants this ability to lay on of hands. But what is Peter’s response? You are in the gall of bitterness and the bondage of iniquity.

Pray that the thought of your heart might be forgiven you. Pray for me. But none of these things should come upon me. Simon the sorcerer says to Peter, and that’s the end of that story. But what I want you to realize is, while he hadn’t committed adultery, while he hadn’t killed anybody, he simply wanted something that was reserved for the apostles only. He had selfish ends for wanting that ability, it appears. He was still in the gall of bitterness and the bondage of iniquity. And that’s where sin always takes you. Regardless of what sin it is. The sinful escapage was not characteristic of David’s life, but it was a period of waywardness. And that’s why when we come to the New Testament, he is still styled the man after God’s heart, Acts 13 and verse 22.

It says, He served the purpose of God and his generation. Two of my favorite statements in the New Testament about faithful disciples of the Old Testament. He was a man after God’s heart, and he served the purpose of God in his generation. Acts 13, 22 and Acts 13, 26. And so, before we even get to Psalm 51, one of the other penitential psalms may also, though the heading doesn’t suggest it, we don’t know exactly when it was written, but it may also be related to the sin with Bathsheba, as he attempts to cover up transgression in that particular psalm, much like he does in 2 Samuel chapter 11. He begins that psalm by saying, How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity. But then in verse 3, he says, When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me, but my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. And then he says, I acknowledged my sin to thee. And my iniquity I did not hide. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin. That might have been written in relation to this incident, but it certainly describes the circumstances of 2 Samuel 11 and 2 Samuel 12, the things to which Psalm 51 most definitely seemed to point.

There had to have been a relief. Despite the fact that his sin was revealed and ultimately is revealed to everyone in subsequent generations. There had to have been a great relief that he was finally moving on. He had to have been haunted by what he had done.

And then says, Now these are the things that are going to happen, because you’ve given occasion of the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. Some horrible things are going to unfold even within your own family. Your own wives are going to be given to your companion, and he shall lie with your wives in broad daylight. You did it secretly. Well, I will do this thing before all Israel. And the son that has been conceived by Bathsheba, that son will die, and indeed he does die. As the events unfold at the end of chapter 12.

In 2 Samuel 16, when Absalom has come in and is going to do exactly what Nathan says in chapter 12. Shemiah, a descendant of Saul curses David as he leaves the city. Here is a once great king who is being forced out. The nation is turned against him. I mean, they have Ashwell has stolen away the hearts of the sons of Israel. And so here he is fleeing. Here is the man who had killed Goliath, who had been so successful in military campaigns. I mean, Israel was reaching its zenith as a nation, and now he’s out.

The man who would be called the man after my heart of the New Testament. He’s leaving town, and Shemi curses him, and Joab is fiercely loyal to David. And he says, Let me fall upon him and kill him. And David says, What do I have to do with you, O son of Zariah? David says, God told him to do this. And I’m not sure whether he knows that or not. And this story related to Shemiah doesn’t really finish here. It’s dealt with later in Solomon’s reign. But David realizes that his suffering has something to do with the words of Nathan back in 2 Samuel chapter 12. But by the time Psalm 51 is written, David has progressed from how can I cover my tracks to how can I treat God this way?

There are four things that I want to talk to you about in briefly in regard to Psalm 51 that I believe are important in our repentance.

1. Linger Long Over the Tragedy of Sin

And the first point is, I think, the most significant of all. If we’re going to repent of sin, any sin. I believe it is important that we learn from Psalm 51 the need to linger long over the tragedy of what has been done. We read about repentance in the New Testament that the sorrow of this world produces death. It’s not going to produce repentance merely to be sorry for what we’ve done or sorry for the consequences that we have received, but it is a godly sorrow. It is a sorrow focused on what I have done to God that produces repentance. And what flows out of repentance are the kinds of attitudes revealed in 2 Corinthians 7 and verse 11. Yea, what longing, yea, what zeal, yea, what earnestness, Paul says, comes out of this right expression of repentance before God.

We must not confuse real repentance with mere confession. It will always accompany confession. But real repentance has to do with the godly sorrow that ultimately is we’ll see in point number four leads us to a different course. So how do I arrive at godly sorrow? We’re giving some hints to that in 2 Samuel 12.

When he is confronted by the story. And Nathan says, You’re the man. He didn’t say, Yeah, but Bathsheba. She shouldn’t have been bathing in a place where I could see her from my rooftop. Why wasn’t she covered adequately? Well, now if you’re going to deal with the problem of lust with she should have been clothed properly, you’re never going to make it in our world. Because there’s no way to make everybody in the world clothe themselves properly. Especially not when it’s 100 degrees outside in Houston, Texas. And so you can’t say, well, I’m just a victim to the immodesty of others. No, it was your lust that was the problem. You didn’t direct yourself away from what you have seen. You’re still guilty. So he wasn’t blaming others.

He wasn’t saying I was rendered incapacitated. It was something too great that I couldn’t overcome. You know, it was interesting how easily he could assess the failure of others.

Oh, man, he never should have taken that little U lamb that belonged to that poor person. In fact, he got so indignant about that, he said, he deserves to die. Got another whole sermon about that. We can so easily size up the errors of others and say, I can’t believe they did that. Nathan says, You did that. And then he finally was saying, I can’t believe I did that. I have sinned against the Lord. So often we may compare ourselves to the standard and readily acknowledge that our behavior did not comply. Some don’t ever get that far. But what I want to suggest to you is that perhaps godly sorrow demands more. He did more than just say, I have sinned against the Lord. And this is the point.

If you don’t remember anything else that I said tonight, if you tune me out to this point, please come back. Listen to this one point. You don’t say, I have sinned against the Lord in 2 Samuel chapter 12, and go out in the next 10 minutes and write a psalm 51, and you’re done. He pondered this for a time. He took some time to sit down and write the words of Psalm 51 that would be an expression of his godly sorrow. He lingered long over his sin. If we want to repent, truly repent.

Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. And cleanse me from my sin. Well, that ought to be enough, shouldn’t it? At the end of our prayers, we say, Forgive us of our sins. Amen. Well, we said it. We’ve asked of God, the only one who can grant it. The need for our forgiveness, any more needed than that? Well, here David said it. Blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. He’s not done. For I know my transgressions. And my sin is ever before me. Against thee and thee only I have sinned and done what is evil in thy sight. So thou art justified when thou dost speak and blameless when thou dost judge. And that’s just the beginning of this psalm of confession.

Is there a particular sin that you struggle with? Maybe you committed this sin on numerous occasions. Lustful thoughts, bitterness and hatred of someone, outbursts of anger, gossip with the tongue.

Why is it that we might struggle with the same sin over and over again? Could one reason be that we have not adequately dealt with that sin in the first place? That we’ve not lingered long over the tragedy of sin. Why don’t you try that? That sin that you’ve been dealing with. And sometimes we don’t even verbalize the words. We simply say in our thoughts, and we can do that. We can pray to God, we can direct our thoughts to the throne of God. I don’t believe the words have to come out of our mouth. We can simply say in our mind, God forgive me of this sin. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sin. 1 John chapter 1 and verse 9.

But all of that is predicated upon real repentance that accompanies the confession. Might I suggest that we would be less likely to stumble in transgression in that particular area again if we did more than mentally send our thoughts to God if we said them out loud. No, nobody else has to be there. And if somebody were to see you, they might say, talking to himself. That wasn’t that. But to actually verbalize it, perhaps would be helpful. Deal with it extensively. Listen. Don’t, this is point number one, the one I really want you to get. Don’t take it easy on yourself in fixing sin. Because if you think about it wasn’t a really easy fix for God. Now, was it? Oh, nothing’s too difficult for him.

But I want you to see the massive length of time that it took to arrange all the circumstances that would provide adequately for the problem of sin. All of those sacrifices were inadequate to do so. And so God, throughout history, arranges everything for the fullness of time so that Jesus would die and we could truly have sins remitted.

And justice met in regard to them. So sin wasn’t fixed in a moment. So what makes us think that forgiveness of our sins, amen, is going to be adequate?

And fixing our sins before God. I’ll tell you what we do. It’s the same thing we do in prayer in general. God’s a bending machine. And what we do is we pull the letter. I guess we push buttons now. I hate how that changed bending machines. There’s more fun when you pull the lever.

Pull the lever, and the thing pops down. And I tell you, that’s the way we want to want God to answer our petitions, and that’s the way we want God to deal with our confession. Pull the letter, done. Easy fix. God goes out the forgiveness. But have we repented?

God is not a bidding.

David spent a great deal of time composing this psalm. And perhaps Psalm 32.

2. Acknowledge Painfully the Sin

To properly assess his condition in sin. Did you get that? Perhaps we need to linger longer over the tragedy of our sin. And acknowledge painful the sin. David sheds real tears. How long has it been since there was any real shedding of tears in our commission of sin? In Psalm 6, that first penitential psalm.

Nor chasten me in thy wrath. There’s another passage of wrath. Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am pining away. Heal me, O Lord, for my bones are dismayed, and my soul is greatly dismayed. But thou, O Lord, how long? Return, O Lord, rescue my soul, save me because of thy loving kindness. And over to Psalm 130, the second to last of the penitential Psalms. Out of the depths I cried to thee, O Lord, hear my voice. Let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If thou, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand. Out of the depths I have cried to thee. Kidner, in his commentary on Psalm 51, says, But this is David’s blackest moment of self-knowledge. They say confession is good for the soul.

And indeed it is. But it’s hard on the ego. And that’s not a bad thing. Psalm 51 reveals the awful stench of our sin. I love Tim Jennings’ analogy at the Southside lectures very recently when he talked about skunks. And he said, Do you think skunks know that they stink? And I thought the analogy was excellent. Because in our sin, we really have a stench. A foul odor to us in the sight of God that needs to be fixed. You can’t paint sin any worse than it is. This psalm 51, could be doubled or tripled in length. And it wouldn’t be an injustice or state the case too severely. Sin is high treason. Against thee and thee only I have sinned. The flouting of God, Kidner says, is always at the length and breadth of sin.

If thou, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand. Doy Moyer, who is one of the professors at Florida College, I’m sure Colton and Brett are with Ace’s classes if they haven’t already. He said recently, We don’t oppose sin because we think we are perfect and sinless. We oppose sin because it is opposed to God’s glory. We oppose it because it is opposed to humanity. We oppose it because it is opposed to everything we are intended to be. This means we must sometimes purposefully oppose our own thoughts and actions. Denial of self means a recognition that God’s way is right, even though we are sometimes not right. It also means taking the only path available to true forgiveness through Christ. And in this Psalm, David goes on, after acknowledging painfully his sin.

3. Purify Me and I Shall Be Clean

And suggesting in verse 5, not original sin, not that he was born with sin. When he says, Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. He realizes that from the time he was a child, he was brought forth into a culture of sin. And he’s basically saying, as I heard one commentator say a long time ago, he got into it as quickly as he could. Thus the influence of our surroundings. But he goes on to say, Purify me with hyssoph and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Hide thy face from my iniquities and blot out all my iniquities in verse 9. Do not cast me away from thy presence in verse 11, and do not take thy Holy Spirit from me.

4. Commit Firmly to a New Course

Verse 14, deliver me from my blood guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation. Remember the quote I had this morning from our study in Zachariah. Repentance is not something that can be simply done once and for all and left behind. It is not merely the renunciation of this and that particular sin, but it is the renunciation of self and the reorientation of a person’s life around God. And what we suggested is that sin is always. Selfishness is always trying to make a comeback in our lives. Finally, once he lingered long over the tragedy of a sin and acknowledged painfully that sin and humbly asked for cleansing, David committed firmly to a new course. And that’s what repentance must do. Verse 10 create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Restore to me the joy of thy salvation, verse 12, and sustain me with the willing spirit, and then I will teach transgressors thy way, and sinners will be converted to thee. My tongue will joyfully sing of thy righteousness in verse 14. Open my lips that my mouth may declare thy praise. The sacrifices of God, verse 17, are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Yes, he may want an animal sacrifice for my sin, but what he wants even more, David says, is the sacrifice of a broken spirit and a broken heart. A wonderful psalm. We can learn a lot about how to deal with our transgression, but I would have you know, remember I said, selfishness is always trying to make a comeback?

Conclusion

David wasn’t done with the practice of sin. He would number the people at 1 Chronicles 21 and have some tragic results from that decision. And we will likely not be done with the problem of sin as well. Again, I think it’s easy for us to look at the example of David and say, how could he have done that? Really? The man after God’s own Lord? I just can’t identify with that. Well, maybe not with that particular sin. And he was in a unique position as the king, which I am not in. But our sins are no less tragic. And if we think for one second that we’re better because we’ve not gone to those lengths in our sin, what about just being so proud and self-righteous?

You know, the worst kind of sin, the worst sin of all. Homosexuality. Drunkenness. You know what the worst sin is? The one that we do not see. Or acknowledge. Or from which we will not repent. The Pharisees. We have no need of a physician. I did not come to call the righteous Jesus said that sinners. They could not recognize their self-righteousness, and it would destroy them spiritually. Penitent. Penitent, remorseful, repentant homosexuals can be saved. I don’t know how many on the day of judgment, but there will be some. Penitent, remorseful, repentant adulterers can be saved. And there will be on the day of judgment. But those who stubbornly persist in sin, who fail to recognize such things as self-righteousness or even pride. Those things will condemn us.

In Psalm 139, that’s why David would pray Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxious thoughts and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way. David’s example ought to be an encouragement to us. That no matter how crippled we have been because of sin, that we can, by God’s grace and mercy and help, that we can pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off and move on. And who knows? Maybe the record at the last day is he or she had a heart like mine. Despite the tragedy of our past. That ought to be our goal. Here’s the final question. Do you still grieve over sin? There may have been a time when your heart was pierced like those on the day of Pentecost, where you felt great sorrow for your sin?

Or is it now just like pulling that level? I’ve got this great access to God. Boom. Pull the letter. Forgive me of my sins. Amen. Is that it? It’s godly sorrow that produces repentance. And if we’re still struggling with a sin that we’ve been struggling with for a long time, maybe we need to ask this question. Do we grieve over the tragedy of our sin? Have you ever come to the point where you realize that sin on your account is something that needs to be fixed and can only be fixed by being cleansed in Jesus’ blood? Sin’s not going to go away any other way. Godly sorrow that produces repentance. A determination, I’m going to go a new course. I’m going to walk in newness of life.

I’m going to be baptized into Christ just as Jesus died, was buried, and then arose. I’m going to rise again to follow the course that He has laid out for me. That’s where it starts. Can we assist you in making that great decision tonight while we stand and sin together?