God's Word opened before us, let's bow our hearts now in prayer and ask that the Spirit of God would come and speak to us from His Word. Father in Heaven, we are thankful again that we can gather around Thy Word. We confess again our utter need of the help of the Holy Spirit to understand this book aright. We confess that in and of ourselves we are not sufficient to understand Thy Word. It's not that Thy Word is clouded, it's that our sinfulness and our frailty keeps us from understanding aright. We would ask then that Thy Spirit would come, that He would quicken us, that He would take of the things of Christ and manifest them to us. Lord, take this meeting tonight the direction Thou would have it to go. Give us grace as we study Thy Word together. Lead us along and speak to our hearts. For we ask this in Jesus' name and for His glory alone. Amen. The Word of God is a living book, and it's fresh every time we open it to study. This last week I was looking at this psalm again. I noticed something I hadn't noticed before. One of the things I noticed was that as I went through the psalm, the name Jehovah does not appear in the psalm. Jehovah is the name, the personal name of God. It's the name that's used over and over again when referring to His covenant relationship with His people. Yet here in the psalm, David does not refer to him as Jehovah. He refers to him as God, as Elohim. When you look in your Old Testament, Jehovah's name is capitalized by the capitalization of the word Lord. L-O-R-D in capital letters is the Hebrew name Jehovah. You'll see that the word Lord does occur once in this psalm, verse 15, but it's not capitalized. That's because the Hebrew word is not Jehovah, but Adonai, meaning Master, Sovereign. So the word Jehovah does not occur in this psalm. You say, what does that mean for us? Well, I think that we can say that here is David who has sinned against the Lord. And that personal relationship, that close relationship, that intimate relationship is broken. And now when he speaks to God and he asks Him for forgiveness, he can't even bring himself to use the name Jehovah, the personal name, to address his God. Turn if you would back for a moment to Psalm 32. This too deals with David's confession of sin. The difference between Psalm 51 and Psalm 32 is Psalm 32 is written after he has forgiveness. He has confessed his sins. His sins are forgiven. Now you look down through Psalm 32. Whose name do you find? Jehovah all the way through. Jehovah exclusively. That personal relationship has been restored, and so he uses the personal name of God. He calls Him Jehovah. Here in Psalm 51, David is feeling the sting of his sin. The first verse, which is actually our introduction in the King James Bible, says this, a psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him after he had gone into Bathsheba. He is now addressing God. His heart is awakened. He feels his sin. He knows his guilt, but he also knows there's a distance between him and God because of his sin. And one of the things that evidences that is the way that he speaks to God. He won't call Him Jehovah. He merely calls Him God, his Master. Tonight, as we look into this psalm, I want us to look at these relationships that have been broken by David's sin. We have been meditating on this psalm, and we have noted that it begins with David giving a number of requests for forgiveness. We call that his cry for cleansing. We find it in verses 1 and 2. But then in verses 3 to 6, there are no requests. Basically, David is merely stating his confession. What he has done to God. What he has done before God. How he's thrown off the yoke that God had placed on him. And then we have at the end of the psalm, the third section of the psalm, David again bringing to the Lord great requests. But with these requests are also the results, that is the consequences, the things that will happen when God indeed forgives. So we find four different sections in this last section. We find that in verses 7-8, it's the relationship with God Himself that's before David. He says, "...purge me, and I'm going to be clean. Wash me, I'll be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice." This is his relationship with God. Then we find in verses 9-13, he's concerned about his testimony to the world. And he wants that there would be this revelation of redemption to sinners from his lips. He wants them to hear of salvation and to take that seriously. And so there are requests that they ask God in order that that testimony would be restored among the heathen. In verse 13, he says, Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee. And then we have in verses 14-17, the passage that we read tonight, David's desire That he would rejoice in the reconciliation that he has before the saints. That he would be able to come into the congregation of God and with a clear conscience be able to sing the praise of God. Show forth his praise with all boldness and confidence. And then lastly we see in verses 18 and 19, he wants the renewal of righteousness in the sanctuary itself. He wants those things that ought to be done to be put back in order. Tonight I want us to think on this rejoicing. in God's reconciliation before the saints. First of all, when you look at this, we see that David here confesses the seriousness of his sin. He begins by calling it, as our translators translate it, blood guiltiness. Deliver me from blood guiltiness. What is he referring to when he says blood guiltiness? If you have a marginal rendering, you might see that it has the word blood in the plural. The Hebrew word is the word bloods in the plural. Now you might think that it's referring here to the fact that there have been more than one people killed by David. We know that Uriah the Hittite was killed. He was the husband of Bathsheba, but he was not the only one who died. They went near, as it were, the citadel, and then David said, set these men forward. Uriah was one of the men. Uriah died, but if you go back to 2 Samuel 11, you'll note there are other servants who died as well. In order to cover his sin, David was guilty, not just of killing one man, but of killing many men. He put them to death. This word for bloods, when it's in the plural, often times is associated with bloodshed, murder. taking of someone else's life. We find in Psalm 59, verse 2, David says, Deliver me from the workers of iniquity and save me from bloody men. Literally, the men of blood. Save me from men who are filled with the killing of other men, who shed the blood of other men. I don't think David was merely concerned with the material aspects of what his sin had brought to him. I don't think he was really so much concerned here with the fact that someone might take his life. David is dealing with the guilt, the spiritual aspects of his sin. Everywhere David looks, he sees the sin. Every time he thinks he has this sin coming back to him. He has cut off the life of another man. It's a very serious sin. We can't underestimate the seriousness of what David had done. He had taken another man's life. This was not just some ceremonial uncleanness. If it were ceremonial uncleanness, there would be sacrifices that he could offer. The ceremonial uncleanness was something that itself pictured sin. And the sacrifices pictured the sacrifice of Christ. So when you're a ceremonial unclean, give a sacrifice that in a sense would purge that picture. Hebrews chapter 9 says it perhaps more clearly. Hebrews chapter 9 verse 13, For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctify it to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? The animal sacrifice, sanctified to the purifying of the flesh. You would become unclean. Now there are many ways you could be unclean. And it doesn't necessarily mean you were sinful. You could be unclean by having a child. You could be unclean by touching a dead body. You could be unclean by being a leper. You hadn't committed sin necessarily, but these things were used in the nation to teach the people something about sin, so that if you were unclean, you had to go to the sacrifices and you had to offer them. It was to teach you something about sin. You couldn't walk through your daily life without having to use the sacrifice, and that was to teach you that you can't walk through your daily life without laying hold of God's sacrifice, the coming Messiah. David's sin was certainly more serious in some ceremonial uncleanness. David's sin was even more serious than the sins that we commit in our mind. It wasn't merely mental. Our Lord speaks in Matthew 25. You've heard that it was said of them of old time, Thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill thee shall be in danger of judgment. But I say unto you that whosoever is angry with his brother without cause shall be in danger of the judgment. Our Lord is saying, you're mine. You can commit sin. Later, he says the same thing about adultery. He says the same thing about other sins. You can commit them in your mind, in your heart. While in God's sight, those are truly sinful and wicked and wrong, yet there is a difference between that and the actual taking of a man's life, the actual committing of sin. It was more than mere mental sin, although David's mind was certainly involved. A David sin, we could say, is also a sin that could not be reversed. You couldn't reverse what David had done. Now, some sins you could, if someone had come to you and stolen from you. God had a judgment upon that, that you were to pay back what you owed them, plus you were to pay back double. And so you could, in a sense, reverse. Obviously, if you lost the value of that, if you were going to use that money at the time, and you couldn't use that money, you might have lost out on something you were going to buy. But nonetheless, you could, in a sense, reverse it. You could give back in that particular type of sin. David couldn't give back a man's life. David robbed some of these families of their husbands. David robbed some of these families of their father. There's no way David could bring them back. David had sent them to their death. And he did it for one reason. He did it to cover his sin. It was purposeful. He desired that they would die in order that it might cover his sin. It shows the blackness of the heart. When we go into sin and we won't repent of sin, we can commit all kinds of abominations. Here is David committing an abomination that a few years before would have been so foreign to him, and so contrary to him, he probably would have told you, I could never have done this type of thing. But now we find David, and we see the magnitude of the sin building, and finally he actually commits murder. David doesn't have the ability to remove that sin, and he confesses it in the passage that we read. Would you look at what he says? He says, deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, the God of my salvation. And then he says in verse 16, For thou desirest not in sacrifice, else would I give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offerings. David says there's nothing I can do. You don't want my sacrifices. Now, this is especially true if the heart is unchanged. If the heart is unchanged, to give sacrifice indicates hypocrisy. And we see this in the prophets over and over again. The Lord is rejecting the sacrifices in Israel because their hearts aren't changed. We can also say that even if the heart was changed, the sacrifice could not remove sin. Turn if you would to Hebrews chapter 10, and let me point out a few verses there to you in Hebrews chapter 10. In verse 4, chapter 10, the apostle says, For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. It's not possible. Look at verse 11. And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. It can't get any clearer than that. Now he glories in the sacrifice of Christ and Christ's high priestly ministry. And then at the end of chapter 10, he warns the people, if you don't want the high priestly ministry of Christ, you don't have any more options. Look at what he says in verse 26. For if we sin willfully, after that we receive the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. If I don't want Christ's sacrifice, I'm sinning against it, I'm rebelling against it. The animal sacrifices don't take away sins. He's already established that. What do you have left? There are no more sacrifices. There is no way of atoning for sin. This is the Apostle's way of shutting these Jews up to clinging to Christ. He said the sacrifices in the Old Testament won't remove sin. You have only the sacrifice of Christ to cling to. And if you don't want that sacrifice, there is no sacrifice for sins. Sacrifices in the Old Testament could not remove sin. It's impossible. A man has sinned, a man must die. A man has broken God's law and a man must give his life for that. The wages of sin is death. The Scripture is clear that when Adam was spoken to by God, God said, you're going to surely die if you break my command. The wages of sin is death. And either we atone for our own sin, or we must get an animal to do it, but no animal can atone. So where does that leave us? David is being very clear here. He said, Thou dost not delight in sacrifices. You'd have thought he was writing the book of Hebrews. David understands exactly what's going on in salvation. He understands that these were types and shadows. They were important. God ordained them. But the animal sacrifice in itself could not remove sin. What was important then? What was important was not so much the picture, but the heart attitude. And so we find then, man's responsibility was to indeed submit to God, come to God and repent. And we find in verse 17, David says, the sacrifices of God are what? A broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. You're not going to view this lowly. You're not going to view this with contempt. Now would David accompany his broken heart with sacrifices? Yes, we find later on him doing that very thing, stating that he would do that. But those were merely pictures that could not remove sin. David said the thing God is concerned about is your heart, whether there is truly repentance there. What does he describe the repentant heart as? He describes it as a broken heart and a contrite heart. This word for breaking is used in the Old Testament for a number of different images. It's used for the breaking up of ships. Remember Jehoshaphat went into this alliance with another king and his ships were broken up. This is the word that's used for that description. It's the word that's used for the breaking of bows and arrows in the book of Psalms. You have this word being used several times for the breaking of the implements of war, as it were. It's the word used for the tearing down and destroying of idols. It's also the word used for the breaking of the arm. They were broken on. It's even used of Eli in the breaking of his neck. This word then is very picturesque for us. It shows us the snapping of something that was strong, the breaking of that which is strong. God is saying, I want your heart to be broken. I want it to be shattered as it were. And if that wouldn't register on the Jewish mind, the next word would. He uses the word contrite. This too has the idea of shattering, the idea of crushing. crushing of the heart before God, the spirit, the inner man before God. It occurs oftentimes in laments. It's used consistently of one who's physically and emotionally crushed because of sin. God says, I want your heart to change. You've been bold. You've been strong against me. I want that strength to be broken. I don't want that rebellion to remain. And so we have here God demanding, and David referring to the fact that God wants our heart to be broken, our spirit to be broken before Him, to be contrite. If you had a broken arm, obviously there'd be pain in that. If you had a broken arm, it'd be tender, you couldn't touch it. If you had a broken arm, there'd be loss of strength, you couldn't use that arm, it wouldn't be useless. When our heart breaks before God because of sin, those things are true. There's pain there. The heart's been wounded. The person that's broken before God feels his pain before him. He has sinned against God. And David says, I know that this means something to you, that my heart is broken. It's tender, the heart. It feels pain. It feels things it couldn't feel before. It's broken in that it's not useful. It's hard to even live in life with a broken heart. Our heart is broken over sin. Remember the day you got saved and God had smitten your heart? How difficult it was to function until you got that weight of guilt off your shoulders? This is what David is laboring under. He feels the weight of his guilt and he says, God, you're not going to despise me. My heart is broken. That's what you want. David here, in his earlier statements, confesses the seriousness of his sin. The magnitude is great. He can't remove it. All he can do is be broken before God. That's all he can do. But I think that the fact that David is actually praying to be forgiven indicates that in David's mind that there is a sufficiency to God's satisfaction. That there is an atonement before God that will remove sin. This prayer, I believe, implies that. Why else would David say, deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, unless God could do that very thing? Now, we ask our question, how? And David doesn't answer that question here. How does he remove us from blood guiltiness? A broken heart doesn't remove the blood guilt. A broken heart is what God requires, but it doesn't remove it. How is it removed? Well, David being the good theologian that he is, tells us of it in another passage. Turn, if you would, to Psalm 40. Psalm 40, we have a very unusual psalm. It is one of those psalms, like Psalm 22, where the Messiah is actually speaking through David. Where the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the coming Christ is speaking through David, telling what will happen. Let's pick up this psalm in verse 6. Psalm 40, verse 6, "...sacrifice and offering, thou didst not desire. Mine ears hast thou opened. Burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me. I delight to do thy will, O my God. Yea, thy law is within my heart." I have preached righteousness in the great congregation. Who is this that's speaking? Well, if you first looked at it, you would say, David's the author, so David is the one speaking. But you must look again. Though I come in the volume of the book that is written of me. The volume of the book wasn't written about David. It was written about the coming Messiah. Turn, if you would, back to Hebrews 10. Hebrews 10, we find the apostle applying this very passage to Christ. Look at what it says in verse 5. Wherefore, when he cometh into the world..." When's that? That's the incarnation. "...when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou prepared me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure." This is Christ. And he said this as he's coming into the world. He's saying, God, you're not desirous of animal sacrifice, so you're sending me. You're not desirous of animal sacrifice, so you're preparing me a body. Language is a little different here. In Hebrews chapter 10 it says, preparing a body. In Psalm 40 it says, the opening of the ear. The opening of the ear is an expression in the Old Testament that refers to obedience. When your ear would be open, that would be the time you're converted. Our Lord uses the same type of language in the New Testament. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. The opening of the ear is conversion. But when was Christ converted? When was His ear opened? It was opened from the time that He came into this earth, from the time He had a body. And so the author in Hebrews rightly understands what is being said. You prepared a body for me. You opened my ears. You gave me a nature that was sinless. I laid hold of that nature. You did desire and sacrifice and offering. What did you desire? You desired that I would come with a body. Now, why would He come with a body? Hebrews 10 makes it very clear why He came. He came in order that He might die for the sins of His people. Turn, if you would, back to Psalm 40. You have the incarnation stated. He comes in the fire in the book that is written of me. Verse 8, I delight to do thy will, O my God, yea, thy law is within my heart. Verse 9, I preach thy righteousness in the great congregation. Here you have the incarnation and the birth. Here you have the doing of the will of God. Here you have Him preaching in the great congregation. Our Lord says, Lo, I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, thou knowest. I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart. I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation. I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation. Isn't that our Lord? Read the Gospels. It's exactly what He did. Everywhere He went preaching, you couldn't shut Him up. Our Lord spoke in the temple. He spoke in the synagogues. He spoke in the open plain. He spoke on the Sea of Galilee. He was continually preaching God's righteousness. It didn't matter who stood in His way. If they are righteous, he preaches God's righteousness. If they are hypocritical, he preaches God's righteousness. If they are those who knew they were sinful, he preaches God's righteousness. He continually preaches God's salvation. Verse 11, we go on, Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O Lord. Let thy lovingkindness and thy truth preserve me. And then we find this statement in verse 12. For innumerable evils have compassed me about. My iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am able to look up, and they are more than the hairs of mine head. Therefore, my heart faileth me." You say to me, well, wait a minute, wait a minute. You've been telling us this is Christ, not who is speaking. God's people, as they've come to this verse, it's been perplexing to them. And there are two ways men have dealt with this verse, primarily, two ways. One is to say that we have here the Spirit of Christ coming upon David and speaking for Christ, and now it's come back and David is speaking. And so what you have is, as it were, the Messiah speaking through David, and then you have David speaking, and then the Messiah speaking through David, and David speaking. You have this going back and forth. There's another way of taking this, though. And that is to say that, again, verse 12 is dealing with the Messiah. not dealing with his sins, that is, the sins he has committed, but dealing with the sins that have been laid upon him. Our sins, your sins, my sins. Spurgeon takes it this way. Hugh Martin, the one who wrote the great book on the atonement, takes it that way. I could list a number of commentators who, when they see this verse, they say, this is the imputing of our sins to Christ. Think of that in verse 12. My iniquities have taken hold upon me, did they not? Oh, they are his iniquities in the sense they belong to his people. He's the head, we're the body. In that sense, they're his iniquities. And now all of a sudden they've taken hold upon him. He's being brought into judicial judgment for our sins. Oh, we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace fell upon Him. 1 Peter 2 and verse 24, it says, He bare our sins in His own body on the tree. It's a mystery. He never became a sinner. He never sinned. We have to be very clear about that. There was no sin in Him, but His sin laid upon Him because He was united to His people. It was imputed to him to use a theological language. He was considered to be sin. Not able to look up, he said, there are more than the hairs of mine head. Here is the spotless Son of God who never sinned, but he had sins laid upon him that were more than the hairs of his head. Why? They were your sins, they were my sins put upon him. We have a progression here in coming into this earth, in delighting to do the will of God, in standing in the congregation and preaching. Where does verse 12 take us? We're at the cross, and sins are placed upon him and taken hold upon him, like waves going over his head. He's being crushed under wave after wave after wave of God's judgment because of our sins. Around the cross there was mocking. Those who continually mocked Him. And He says in verse 13, Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me. O Lord, make haste to help me. Let them be ashamed and confounded together that seek after my soul to destroy it. Let them be driven back and put to shame that wish me evil. That prayer was answered. Those who surrounded Him like a pack of wolves were put to shame when God removed Him from the tomb on the third day. God brought him out of the tomb. God exalted him to his own right hand. At the beginning of this psalm, you have the psalmist recording this deliverance that he receives in his prayer at the end of the psalm. And what do we have? I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined unto me and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of a miry clay. Our Lord was brought out of a horrible pit. He went into the jaws of death. God brought him out again. God put him upon that rock. God established his goings. God put a new song in his mouth. And many have seen this risen Christ, and they fear. Brethren, because we're in Christ tonight, we can say this is true of us because we're quickened with Him, we're risen with Him, and we can say we have been brought out of that horrible pit, we have been put upon that new rock, God has put a new song in our mouth, we can sing this psalm with delight because we are in Christ, but this happened to Him. Hebrews 10 tells us this belongs to the Savior. How then are your sins removed? They were removed because they were put upon him, they took hold upon him. They were removed because he was punished, and like waves of judgment they went over his head. They were removed because he bore them all away. Well, David in Psalm 51 does not explain to us what is going on as to the removing of our sins, how they're removed. David just merely says, God desires that I have a broken heart. That's the sacrifice He wants me to offer. But how, David, are your sins removed? He tells you in Psalm 40. He tells you in Psalm 22. It's the sufferings of this other one, this Messiah, this one who's to come. That's how my sins are removed. The deity of Christ is certainly indicated in Psalm 40, his preexistence, he comes into this earth, and if he is deity, then he is infinite, and if he is infinite, he can bear all the sins of all of his people upon him. The God-man can remove our sins. What a wonderful psalm. We come back to Psalm 51, and we have the cry of David. David's cry is to the source of salvation. You note that David doesn't go anywhere else. "'Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God! Deliver me. Who does he ask that to? He doesn't go to the prophet, Nathan. He doesn't go to the priest who is laboring in the temple. He says, Lord, deliver me. Verse 15, O Lord, open thou my lips. Open my lips. It goes directly to God. David's request comes from a position of condemnation. David's request also comes from a position where he so feels his guilt, his mouth is shut. It's hard to praise God when you're feeling guilt. David feels his guilt. That's all he can think about. I killed men. I removed them from this earth to cover my sin. I killed these men. And now, David, before God says, God, you're the only one that can open this mouth. Obviously, the opening of the mouth corresponds to the delivering from blood guiltiness. Without one, David could not have the other. Broken spirit, that's what God desires, and then God brings deliverance, and then God opens the lips. That's the order. How do we come back to God? We come back, as far as we're concerned, by confessing our sin, by repenting, having that broken spirit. It's God who has to deliver us from blood guiltiness. That's His work. It's God who has to open our lips. He has to give us confidence before His throne that we're forgiven. That's His work. Here we have David coming and asking God to work. Note what he calls God. He says, the God of my salvation. David's going to the right place. If you're shut up tonight with God, you're in the right place. If you're still thinking of a way where you can connive and you can remove your own sin, and you can atone for your own sin, or someone else can help you atone for your sin, you're in the wrong place. David was locked up to the God of his salvation. He had sinned against God. Yes, he sinned against Uriah. Yes, he sinned against those other men that he killed. But primarily, his sin was against the One who created him. He's coming to his Creator, and he's telling his Creator, I've sinned against You, and if You will remove my sin, my blood guiltiness, You'll remove the guilt that I'm feeling for sin. And if You'll remove that guilt, my mouth will be opened, and I will sing of Your righteousness. Thy righteousness. That's the God He's coming to. Righteousness. We can speak of God's attribute of righteousness. God is righteous and He does that which is righteous. And obviously, in the removing of sin, He is righteous. Or to use Paul's language, our God is just and the justifier. He is righteous and the one who declares us righteous. He is able to do that. It's His work. It's His work. It can't be done by anyone else. I don't think he's merely speaking of the attribute of righteousness, I think he's speaking of the attributing of righteousness, that is, the fact that he reckons to us a righteousness that is not our own. In Psalm 32 we have this being referred to. Paul refers to this as well in Romans 4. Let me read to you from Romans 4. Paul is referring back to Psalm 32, the very first two verses. And he says, "...even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works." He merely believes. Abraham believed, and it was imputed to him. It was counted to him. It was reckoned to him for righteousness. And now he makes that same application to David. David has believed. He hasn't worked. He hasn't done any works. He merely believes, and when he merely believes, God imputes to him a righteousness that he hasn't earned. What is righteousness? It's those deeds that you do in conformity to the law. Obviously, they flow from faith, but it's not faith. It's righteousness. It's the deeds that you do that flow from that inner man. It conforms to God's law. And here is David who has broken God's law. And yet he says that man is truly blessed whom God imputes righteousness without works. Well, David knew that. And that's why he's saying, God, here in Psalm 51, if you'll remove my sin, if you'll remove my guilt, I will with my own lips sing aloud of your righteousness, that righteousness that you've provided, that righteousness that you've given to me, that you've imputed to me. And then we read in Psalm 32 how he did that very thing. Psalm 32, he's singing aloud of it. He's saying, blessed is the man. Blessed is the man who's forgiven. That's what he's saying in Psalm 32. You and I often don't think of ourselves as blessed when we are forgiven. But when you would compare yourself with everyone else in this world, you are truly blessed when you're forgiven. How many people are there now tonight in this world? Five billion? Six billion? Can we even count them? How many people tonight are trusting alone in the righteousness of Christ? How many people have His righteousness imputed to them? We can go to the cults in America. They think they're Christendom. They reject imputed righteousness. They're trying to earn their way and their favor with God. We can go to the Church of Rome. She's trying to earn her favor with God. We can go to liberal Protestantism. They don't believe in a blood atonement. They're trying to earn their favor with God. That's a large number of people. Rome herself says she has a billion people. The World Council of Churches and the Greek Orthodox Church would claim about 400 million people in the earth. All of them say they're Christianity, and yet they're bound up in a works religion. And then we go to paganism. What is their means of atoning for sin? You go to Judaism. It's works. They don't have a blood atonement. It's works. You go to the Hindus. You go to the Muslims. It doesn't matter who you look at. At the bottom of it, it's works. Somehow they're going to atone for their sins before God. When you stop to contemplate tonight that your sins are forgiven, you are of a minority on this earth, but you are in the blessed minority. And that will become very abundant when you die. It will become even more abundant when you stand before God on the day of judgment and men give an account for every one of their sins. In that day you will be seen to be the blessed man. That's why David said, How enviable is the man whose sins are forgiven! David gloried in this righteousness that God provided. The removal of unrighteousness and the imputing of righteousness. And Paul rightly takes that and he applies it to us as believers. David says, Lord, if you will do this for me, you remove my guilt. You open my mouth. I have confidence that guilt is removed. I am going to sing aloud. I'm going to show forth your praise. Look at what he says in verse 15. This is not singing in the closet somewhere. This is opening the lips and letting others hear. Only one thing that matters to David at this point in his life. Only one thing that matters to him, and that's that his sins be gone. David has this judgment day honesty. would that God would give it to us. That we could so deal with God tonight, that we would be dealing with Him now as we would want to deal with Him in the day of judgment. David has this judgment day honesty, and he comes before God, and he says, the only thing that matters, God, is that You forgive me, and if You forgive me, I will stand in the congregation of Your people, and I will show forth Your praise. I will show it forth. Psalm 32, verse 10, he says, Many sorrows shall be to the wicked, but he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about. And then he says in verse 11, Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous, and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart. You're righteous because God imputes it to your upright heart, because he's changed your heart as well. Be glad in the Lord, Psalm 32. Are you glad in the Lord tonight? If you were standing in David's shoes and had just had your sins, the guilt of this blood guiltiness, removed, you would be glad in the Lord. How often we forget our sinfulness and the breaking of his law and the fact that we ought to be in hell. We forget that. We look at someone else's sins and we compare ourselves with, well, you know, I'm not as bad as so-and-so. So, you know, we get this pride about us that God somehow is accepting us because of what we have done, who we are, who we associate with, not realizing that if God dealt with us apart from Christ, we too would be condemned. Be glad in the Lord, David says in Psalm 32. Paul echoes that in the New Testament. Rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice, Philippians 4.4. Rejoice evermore, Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 16. Well, I can't rejoice in this sinful world always, but I can rejoice in Him. What David was doing here is going to be talked about among the kings and the heathen nations. You think they're going to clap their hands because David has repented and gotten right with Jehovah? You think they're going to pat David on the back? I mean, if you could read the times of the Hittites, their newspaper, what would they be saying about David? They'd be dragging his name through the mud. But David's not concerned with the heathen thing. David has this judgment-day honesty. He knows he's got to stand before God. There's only one thing that matters in David's line, and that is that the guilt be removed. He has sinned, and he wants the guilt removed. And he can be glad in the Lord if that guilt would be removed. He rightly says, Lord, if you'll do this, I will rejoice. And then in Psalm 32, he is glad in the Lord. He's telling others to be glad in the Lord and rejoice. He says to the believers, shout for joy. Again, shouting for joy, that's not something that happens in the closet. Or if it does, there may be people in your home or whatever wondering what's going on. There are athletics events today going on throughout our nation. And people are shouting for joy over that which doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter at all. People are actually being paid today. to lead other people in shouts for joy over that which doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all. But if you feel what David felt, and your sins are removed like David's are removed, you'll have to fight down the shouts, because they'll be on your lips. You'll want to shout for joy. God, I am guilty. I'm on my way to hell. And if anybody else doesn't follow me, and if anybody else doesn't believe this, I know I'm on my way to hell. You've boxed me in with yourself by your Spirit. You've quickened me. I know I'm going to stand before you in judgment. Lord, you've removed my sin. What does the heart want to do when the sin is removed? It wants to shout for joy. The only time you can do that on this earth is now. coming a day when your lips will be silent and not to stand before him, but you have the opportunity now to by faith lay hold of this gospel in such a way that it makes you want to shout for joy, makes you want to show forth his praise. David is wanting to be reconciled. He's not minimizing his sin. He's looking at it as it really is. He's looking at all the horror of it. He's magnifying the wickedness of what he has done. And then he looks at it, and he looks at God's forgiveness, and he says, God, you can still forgive this sin, because the Messiah has come, or would come, and take it away. How do you stand tonight before God? You know, we can find out tonight whether you believe like David or not about what your glory is. The Apostle Paul gloried in something. He tells us in Galatians he gloried in the cross. Paul, like David, had blown it, although Paul's sins for the most part were before he was saved. He, too, was guilty of attacking people, bringing them out of their homes, getting them to blaspheme by his persecution. He consented to the death of Stephen, one of God's David had that upon his mind and his heart, and yet we find Paul continually rejoicing, continually praising God. How could such a sinner do that? It's because he knew the same thing that David knew. He knew the same blood atonement, he knew the same standing in righteousness that David had. Because of that, Paul said, I'm not going to glory in anything but in the cross of Christ. What else is there to glory in? When you see yourself as David sees himself here, or when you see yourself as Paul saw himself, you rightly understand there's nothing to glory in what I have done. The world glories in making money. The world glories in how many possessions they have. The world glories in their abilities to do something that someone else can't do. But what is that before God? God's not concerned about any of those things. You and I have broken His law. There's nothing we can do other than have a broken heart. There's nothing we can do to remove our sin. It's all done by God. So where do we glory? We glory in Him. If you're glorying in anything else, your glory is wrong. We glory in Him, in Him. Men and women, boys and girls, tonight, who are you glorying in? We were singing tonight, Just as I am without one plea, But that thy blood was shed for me. You don't have any other plea. David didn't have one. I don't have one. But there is something you can plead before God with, and that is the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son. You must come and lay hold of him. Nobody can do it for you. Nobody in your family Parents can't do it for children. Brothers and sisters can't do it for one another. Children can't do it for parents. Spouses can't do it. You've got to do it for yourself. You've got to come and lay hold of the blood. It's the only thing worth glorying in, if you see yourself from God's vantage point. May the Lord give us grace tonight to see, but may he even give us more grace, and that is to respond and to ask God to indeed remove our shed blood, our guiltiness, as David did, Lord, remove my guilt, cleanse me by your blood. And may we know the response in the heart of God, opening our heart by faith and laying hold of him. Gracious Father, we come to thee, even as your people, glorying in the blood of Christ. Although as your people, perhaps we haven't sinned in the same manner as David, yet we have fallen short time and time again. And like David, we have known what it is to feel this weight of guilt and have no ability to remove it. Ashamed that others would know of our guilt, ashamed that we have committed such things, and no way of removing that guilt. And yet, Lord, You have said that Your Son bore our sins, that He bore them all away. Give us grace tonight, Lord, to lay hold of it. Leave none behind tonight. May each one here lay hold of the shed blood of Christ. We pray for the children even tonight, who have never yet come to embrace Christ. Lord, cause them tonight to embrace the Savior. Come and make them come unto Thee and lay hold of Thee. Lord, we're thankful that Your salvation is free, that You offer it to us freely. Lord, we could not buy it. We have no money. Our offerings are worthless in Your sight. Lord, we are thankful that you offer it to us and tell us to come and lay hold of Christ. Lord, may there be much laying hold of thee by your people and by those who need to become your people this night. Lord, use thy word. Draw us graciously to thyself. For we ask these things in Jesus' name and for his glory. Amen.