David's confession in Psalm 51 reveals that true repentance demands not just forgiveness for actions but supernatural restoration of a rotten nature, distinguishing justification from subjective assurance. The speaker critiques shallow joy and false converts, emphasizing four elements: pleading for pardon, confessing sin's severity, seeking heart transformation over mere behavioral correction, and maintaining a broken spirit. Ultimately, this sorrowful wisdom exposes the church's apostasy, arguing that only a contrite heart receiving grace rather than earning it can produce genuine fruit. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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David's Repentance Context00:02:09
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Continuing with our sermon series through the Psalter, that is through the book of Psalms in the Bible, last Lord's Day, we began preaching through Psalm 51.
This is David's confession.
It models a descriptive text of David's repentance.
And this particular psalm is unique in the sense that its historical origin is pinpointed.
We know the context, we know the reasoning behind the writing of this particular psalm.
This is right after David committed the egregious sin of murdering Uriah and adultery with Uriah's wife, Bathsheba.
And David confesses his sin to the Lord and very.
In very profoundly deep, agonizing terms in Psalm 51.
Again, last Lord's Day, we began Psalm 51.
We focused on the first five verses.
Today, Lord willing, we're going to focus on verses 8 through 17.
So we're doing this in two parts.
We'll finish Psalm 51 today, focusing our attention on verses 8 through 17.
By way of introduction, I've written this Psalm 51 is another psalm that is pinpointed as to its historical origin.
The heading of the psalm states this to the choir master, a psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone into Bathsheba.
Uriah was murdered, his wife Bathsheba was defiled, and her baby, because David and Bathsheba conceived, the baby was sentenced by God to die.
The baby only lived for seven days.
It was one of the consequences, the earthly consequences for David's sin.
The Lord determined that the child should die.
All of that is outlined in 2 Samuel chapter 11.
And yet, what is so peculiar.
Old Testament Saints Saved00:03:45
The mystery of God's grace and mercy is that the prophet Nathan, when he goes in to confront David, the prophet Nathan says to him, The Lord also has put away your sin.
You shall not die.
David is the king, and yet he is not the king of kings.
He is not above the law of the Lord.
It was the penalty of God's law that a murderer like David and an adulterer like David should be punished by death.
The death penalty is what he was due.
And yet, the prophet Nathan, speaking for the Lord, he goes and he confronts David's sin without apology in bold terms.
And yet, in the middle of this confrontation for King David's sin, he assures the king that the Lord has put away his sin and that David will not die.
The wages of sin is death.
But that death had already been paid because Christ was crucified before the foundations of the world.
And David, by grace, through faith, looking for Forward, you and I, as New Testament Christians, in faith, we look back.
We look back to the cross, back to Calvary, back to the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
And we look back through the eyes of faith and through the lenses of Holy Spirit inspired Scripture.
We look back, we see the work of Christ, the person and work of Jesus, through the apostolic writings, through the four gospels, or the one gospel according to four authors.
We see it through the apostolic letters, the epistles written by Paul and Peter and James, we look back to see Christ, but Old Testament saints, they were not saved in some other alternative means.
God has only saved for himself throughout all of human history a people by one means.
That is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
Old Testament saints were not saved by their obedience unto the law.
They were not saved by morality.
They were not saved by the will of man or the work of man.
They were saved in the same way that you and I are by grace through faith in Christ.
The only difference is that Old Testament saints looked forward to Christ, the promised Redeemer, the Messiah, and you and I look back.
For those of us who look back, we look back with more clarity.
And this is a gracious gift from God.
We look back with the apostolic testimonies.
We look back having known that Jesus has already, in real history, come, lived, died, resurrected, and ascended to the right hand of the Father.
But Old Testament saints, such as David, they were saved the very same way, looking forward.
And for them, redemption was much more of a mystery than it is for us.
Much of this mystery has been revealed to us.
But for Old Testament saints who predated the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ, they looked forward to the mystery of redemption.
But ultimately, they were hoping in the gospel, just as we are.
Adam and Eve, what saved them?
Well, it certainly wasn't their good works.
Adam failed to keep the covenant of works.
What saved Adam and Eve?
Grace through faith in Christ.
They trusted in the serpent crusher.
It was promised in Genesis chapter 3 that the seed of the woman, her offspring, that eventually there would come a man and that he would have his heel wounded by this snake, but that ultimately he would crush its head.
How were Adam and Eve saved?
Through faith.
Not works, so that no man may boast, but through faith.
They trusted in the serpent crusher.
Assurance Through Faith Alone00:15:29
We know him as Jesus Christ.
They trusted in the same, their object of faith, right?
It's not the size of your faith that saves you, but the object.
They had the very same object of faith, Jesus.
We just know a lot more about him.
We know a lot more about him, this side of the cross.
So, the point is this David was an adulterer and a murderer.
David was worthy of death, not just physical death under the law of the Lamb, the law of God in the earthly consequences for transgressions and sin.
But David was deserving of an eternal death because, again, Romans says the wages of sin is death.
So, how in the world, this is the question that we focused on last week, how in the world?
Could Nathan, a prophet of God who speaks God's word, he's not making it up, he's speaking the very words of God, how could Nathan say, essentially as a prophet of God, meaning how could God himself say, David, your sin has been put away.
David, you will not die.
The way that God could say to David, without any compromise of his own holiness, his own righteousness, his own justice, the way that God could say to David, you shall not die, although you're a murderer and deserve death, although you're an adulterer and deserve death, and the wages of sin is Death.
You shall not die, not because I've gotten soft, not because I'm now compromising my holiness, not because I'm handing over my deity and ceasing to be God and relinquishing my justice.
No, you shall not die because the wages of sin is death and someone is going to die in your place.
I'm not lifting the penalty.
No, the penalty must be paid because I am a just God and I will by no means, as the scripture says, pardon the guilty.
So, then how are we pardoned?
We just did that in our liturgy, an assurance of pardon.
The Bible literally says, God by no means will pardon the wicked.
So, how do we get pardoned?
Because someone else took the penalty in our place.
Substitutionary atonement.
Jesus, in his death on the cross, he did not merely set for us an example of sacrificial love.
No, Jesus, in his death on the cross, he actually made atonement.
He actually paid for sin.
He didn't just die as an example that we should follow.
No, Jesus died as a substitute.
Behold, the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sin of the world.
God doesn't pardon us by compromising his holiness.
God pardons us, right?
It's the free gift of salvation for you, but it wasn't free for him.
It's only the free gift of salvation for you because it was incredibly costly to God.
It came at the cost of his only begotten son.
So David's sin was put away.
David shall not die, even though the penalty is death, because Jesus would die in his place.
That is the doctrine of justification.
That's the objective theological answer to how David was pardoned from his egregious sin of murder and adultery, as well as all the other sins he committed over the course of his life.
So, that's the objective reality of how God was able to forgive David and how God has forgiven you without any compromise to his own justice.
I've often said that Calvary is the place where both the mercy of God and the justice of God kiss.
God upholding his mercy and his justice in such a way that neither compromises the other.
God perfectly just, God perfectly merciful, giving his son to pay the penalty for the sin that we've committed.
So the objective reality, Romans chapter 3 outlines it very, very clearly.
Romans chapter 3 speaks of David being pardoned, or not David, but in general, the people of God being pardoned.
Romans chapter 3, verses 23 through 26 describe this objective reality of how God put away David's sin and declared him righteous as an act of divine grace, which David received through faith in the coming Messiah.
But what we see here's our focus for today in Psalm 51 is the subjective reality.
So, not the objective theological reality of justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
That's how David's sin was put away in objective terms.
That's how David was forgiven and the penalty was waived in objective terms.
But what Psalm 51 focuses on is not the objective reality of how David was forgiven through the work of Christ, but rather what Psalm 51 focuses on is the subjective reality by which David came to lay hold of an assurance of his forgiveness.
See, the Gospel of John says this the author actually tells us why he wrote the Gospel.
He says, I write these things so that you might believe in him who was sent.
So, John, a disciple of Jesus, underneath the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, tells us in his gospel, I'm writing this, all the accounts of everything that Jesus did, everything he said.
And John even says towards the end of his gospel, he says, if everything that Jesus did was written down, all the books in the world could not contain it.
But these have been written, these have been recorded so that you might believe.
So, John's purpose in writing this gospel is so that you might believe.
But this is what I find so comforting.
In John's first epistle, so that's the Gospel of John.
I wrote this so that you might believe.
But in John's first epistle, his first letter, he says, I write these things so that you might know that you believe.
Brothers and sisters, there is a distinction between believing and knowing that you believe.
And see, that's what David is fighting for with everything he has in Psalm 51.
He's not fighting for, working for, clawing for the forgiveness of God.
That's already been accomplished.
I mean, when we confess our sins every Lord's Day, what are we doing?
Because if we're just thinking in objective theological terms, we've already been forgiven.
And the moment of conversion, the moment that someone first believes and trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ, you're forgiven of all your past sins, your present sins, and your future sins.
So you've already been forgiven.
So what are we doing confessing?
And what are we doing asking and pleading for forgiveness?
Why ask for that which the Scripture plainly tells us in objective terms we already have?
Why do we ask for something we already have?
Because there's a difference in believing and knowing that you believe.
Meaning, there's a difference in the objective theological reality of forgiveness in the doctrine of justification and the assurance of forgiveness, the assurance of pardon, being reminded and convinced and confident in that forgiveness.
There are plenty of people right now on the Lord's Day in churches all over our nation and all over the world.
There are plenty of people on both sides.
Here's the scary side.
I'll do that first.
There are plenty of people who have an assurance of forgiveness who are not forgiven.
And that's the most terrifying thing in the world.
To think that you have right standing with God when you don't.
We call that a false convert.
Someone who has a false assurance.
The person who thinks that they've been born again by grace through faith in Christ, but they don't actually trust in Jesus.
They're actually a dead man walking, they're on death row.
They're still underneath the just condemnation of God, and they don't even know it.
That's why we read the law each week.
It's to see God's holiness.
It's also to scare the hell out of you.
And I use that in biblical terms.
Literally, there's hell.
It needs to get scared out of us by the law of God.
That's a proper word.
That's not cursing.
I wouldn't say that lightly.
God is scaring the Hades, the hell, the sin out of us by His law.
He's causing us to have fear and trembling.
But then He's also reminding us of the grace that He's purchased by the blood of His Son and giving us consolation and comfort and encouragement and reassurance.
Of his great love for us and the forgiveness of sins.
So, the objective theological reality of justification is that at the moment of conversion, the moment you first believe in Jesus, trust in Jesus, all your sin has been pardoned, all your iniquity forgiven, all of it, past, present, and future.
But what we see David doing in Psalm 51 is this subjective process of laying hold with everything he has, clawing for a sense of.
Of comfort, clawing to the ledge of God's mercy and grace to receive forgiveness in real terms?
No.
No, but to be reminded and to be encouraged and to become confident that He is forgiven.
Right?
I write to you, Gospel of John, I write to you so that you might believe.
The first epistle of John, I write to you so that you might know.
So there are two types of people in the church today some who think that they've been forgiven, but they haven't.
But then there's another group of people that we should have a great sense of Christian compassion and sympathy, not empathy, but sympathy, compassion, and concern for.
And those are the people who actually have been forgiven, but don't feel like they have.
So there are those who are false converts.
They have not been forgiven.
They are not Christians, but they think they are.
They have a confidence that they should not have.
But there are others who have been forgiven.
God has saved them.
And they do, and their inner being delights in the law of God.
Romans 7.
They love God, and yet they're constantly struggling to have a sense of comfort and confidence that they truly belong to God.
They're lacking not salvation.
They're lacking the assurance of salvation.
This is what David is clawing for in Psalm 51.
So I want to make that abundantly clear.
David in Psalm 51 is not working for his salvation.
That's a heresy.
That's legalism.
That's not what we see.
We don't see David because he's an Old Testament saint.
He doesn't get the gospel right.
He doesn't understand justification.
He never read Charles Hodge.
He doesn't get this.
No, that's not Psalm 51.
We're not seeing David with his poor theology trying to work.
To somehow merit the favor of God.
No, what we see is David with good theology, one of the best of the Old Testament saints, someone who is well acquainted, well versed in the mercy and forgiveness of God that comes freely on the basis of God's grace, not human merit.
And yet David's still working with everything he has, not to earn God's forgiveness, but to come to a place in terms of his thinking, in terms of his feeling, like I spoke of earlier, in his emotions, in his thoughts.
In his words, in his deeds, in his overall manner of being, he wants to arrive at a place of confidence and assurance that he's been forgiven.
He's not working to be forgiven, he's working to believe that he's been forgiven.
I write to you so that you might know that you've been forgiven, that you might know that you believe.
There is salvation and the objective terms by which it comes by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone.
But then there is the assurance of salvation.
And with that, we might say the assurance of forgiveness of sins.
The assurance of pardon.
And this does not come by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone.
This comes as we work.
Now we know, according to Philippians, that it is God who works in us that which is good and pleasing in His sight.
So all the work is still ultimately God's, but there is God's work for us, justification, Jesus Christ.
But then there is God's work through us, sanctification, pursuing the assurance of salvation.
So God's work for us.
Jesus' work, his life, his death, his resurrection.
And that's where forgiveness comes from objectively.
But there's God's work through us, not in justification, but in sanctification, as we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, knowing, right?
We always cut the verse short.
It's Philippians.
Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
See, you can lose your salvation.
No.
Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, knowing it is Him who works in and through us that which is good and pleasing in His sight.
So it's still God doing the work, and therefore it is still God who gets the glory, but it is God working through us.
And we are partnering with the Lord in this work of sanctification in a way that we do not partner with the Lord in justification.
He does that alone.
Right?
You partnered with God in your justification the same way a dead person, the same way Lazarus partnered with Jesus in his resurrection.
Right?
Lazarus came forth.
That was not a team effort.
It's not like Lazarus came out of the tomb and gave Jesus a high five and said, Teamwork made the dream work.
Right?
Jesus, you just, you perfect alley-oop, and then did you see me slam dunk as I raised myself from the dead?
No.
He did nothing.
Dead men can't contribute anything.
So, justification is likened to spiritual resurrection, which is a whole work of God, completely a work of God.
But sanctification, working out our salvation with fear and trembling, still a work of God in and through us, but it is something that we partner with.
And that's what we see with David.
This is not David's journey to justification, this is David's journey in sanctification after having sinned egregiously, not trying to somehow merit the forgiveness of God.
But rather, trying to come to a place of being once again confident of the salvation he's freely received by grace through faith in Christ.
And we need to listen up.
We need to learn this lesson.
Because although all of you here today who have faith in the Lord Jesus, you objectively have every ounce of forgiveness you'll ever need for every sin you've already committed and every sin you will, although you've already been forgiven, that does not mean that you always feel forgiven.
Now, one of the reasons that we don't always feel forgiven, there's the finitude aspect.
Part of it is our fallenness, our sinfulness, but part of it is our finitude.
The fact that we are creatures, not just sinful, but simply creatures.
That even if sin never entered the world, we would still not be creators, but rather we would be creatures.
We are finite.
And one of the aspects of our finitude is in our knowing.
God is omniscient, He knows all things.
You and I are not.
We do not know the future with perfect certainty.
The only aspects of the future, I guess, that we do know with perfect certainty are those things that God has promised in His Word.
Apart from that, we do not know the future with perfect certainty.
Sin Is Not A One Off00:06:33
So, the point is, when you sin, it's news to you.
You are surprised by your sin.
This is new information.
And so, part of the reason why we struggle with the assurance of salvation, the assurance of pardon, the assurance of God's love for us and His forgiveness of our sin is because the sin that we've just committed is news.
To us, it may have caught us by surprise.
Now, even that is an indictment of sorts because what it ultimately conveys is that we humored ourselves to be a bit more righteous than we actually were.
But the point is, your sin is new information to you.
And so you're recalibrating, you're rethinking.
Does God really love me?
I mean, how could He after blank?
Whereas, from God's perspective, before the foundations of the world were laid, knowing Everything you would ever do, both good and bad, he chose you in Christ Jesus, in the beloved, to the praise of his glorious grace.
Ephesians 1.
So, this isn't news to God.
But because you're finite, not just because you're fallen, but because you're finite creatures, it is news to you.
You're not omniscient.
And so, you're rethinking, you're not trying to get re forgiven.
You're already forgiven.
But what you're trying to do is you're trying to come back to a place of confidence in God's forgiveness.
That's what's going on with David.
When David gets confronted by the prophet Nathan, and David gives his own death sentence, by the way, right?
Nathan, he gives this parable, this illustration.
He says, There's two men.
One was very rich.
He had all of these sheep, herds and herds, flocks of sheep.
And then there was another man, a poor man, that had one little sheep, and they loved this sheep as though it was like a child in the family, or at least a beloved pet.
It would even come to the dinner table with them, and the kids loved it.
And there was a traveler who came to the rich man.
Wanted to receive hospitality.
And the rich man, in his greed, he snuck into the poor man's stable and he took the one little sheep that they loved.
Rather than sacrificing one of his many, he took the one little sheep that this poor man loved and killed it and served it to the traveler.
And David gets enraged when Nathan says this.
David says, That man should surely die.
Right?
This is the emotions of David.
David, he's an emotional guy.
He's a man after God's own heart, lots of zeal, lots of passion.
Sometimes it goes askew.
There are problems with being emotional.
Charles Spurgeon, he was emotional.
What did that account to?
Charles Spurgeon being incredibly emotional.
A lot of biblical scholars said that if he was alive today, he would probably be diagnosed as bipolar.
What did that amount to?
Well, it amounted to two things chronic depression to where he wanted to die most of his life, and Prince of Preachers.
That's what you get with emotional guys.
You know, that guy can preach and let's pray for his wife because he's probably hard to live with sometimes.
All right, so David's like that, Charles Spurgeon's like that, right?
So David is like, he should surely die.
Which, in objective terms, think about this for a second.
Logically, what David's saying is the death penalty should be invoked for killing a sheep.
That's not God's law, that's not biblical law.
That's David just getting, man, I really got wrapped up in the story, Nathan, and I kind of lost myself for a second.
You know, I just blacked out for a second there.
Death penalty for a sheep, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, human life for a sheep life.
David, all of a sudden, he became a Democrat there.
Human lives are less significant than the lives of animals.
So, anyways, I've got to throw that punch in there.
I've got to throw it in there.
All right.
So, anyways, the point is David lost himself.
David says he should surely die.
What David doesn't realize is this David is actually proclaiming his own destinies.
Because what Nathan then responds with is saying this You are the man.
David, I'm talking about you.
This story is about you.
You're the greedy man.
Uriah had one wife.
Here you are, the king of Israel.
You've got concubines on top of wives.
Multiple wives, multiple concubines, a palace, all of this wealth, vast armies, power, influence, affluence.
You've got it all.
Uriah had one wife that he loved, and you stole her.
And when you realize that you might get caught because she was with child, your child, you sent him to the front lines, and you told, you instructed Joab.
The commander of the armies of Israel to have all of the troops in that portion to go into where the battle was fiercest and then at the last minute withdraw so that Uriah would be left alone so that he would surely die.
That is murder.
That's murder.
You did all of this.
You are the man.
And David proclaims his own death sentence.
That man should surely die.
Nathan says, okay.
But then the next thing that Nathan says is, but you're not going to die.
You should die.
You just said you should die.
That's not even my words or God's words.
That's your own words, your own pronouncement, your own death sentence.
And yet you won't die because the Lord has put away your sin.
You shall not die.
Someone else will die.
The Lord can't just turn a blind eye to this sin without compromising his justice, his holiness, his righteousness.
So someone's got to die.
But it won't be you, King David.
It'll be the king of all kings, King Jesus.
He died in your place.
David is confronted by Nathan.
He has this whole incredible experience.
And then we get Psalm 51.
It's like Nathan the prophet just speaking the very words of God.
He just preached the gospel to you.
Right?
So, what are you doing here, David?
Nathan speaking for God.
So, God's own very words just gave you an assurance of pardon that your sin has been put away and that you shall not die.
Implicitly, the gospel because someone else is dying for you in your place, namely the God man Christ Jesus.
So, what are you doing in this emotional, mental situation?
Even almost physiological agony in Psalm 51.
Nathan Preaches The Gospel00:09:25
He is working for not salvation, but rather he is working for the assurance of his salvation.
He is working not to believe, he is working to know that he believes.
That's what he's doing.
And there are four key elements that David possesses or that David enacts in his repentance, in this painful emotional process of trying to somehow cling to.
To an assurance of God's forgiveness.
Four key elements.
Number one, he asks for forgiveness.
He pleads for forgiveness.
He doesn't just fall back on the doctrine of justification.
He doesn't just say, Well, I've already been forgiven.
No, he said, I've been forgiven, but I'm still going to ask.
I'm still going to plead before God who sits on a throne of grace.
Come boldly before the throne of grace.
I'm going to confess my sins and ask that the Lord would cleanse me, that he would forgive me.
So the first thing that he does, first key element, Is he pleads for forgiveness?
The second is he confesses his sin.
But notice, in confession of sin, David is not informing God of his sin.
Again, God is omniscient, he knows everything.
So when we confess our sin to the Lord, we should confess our sins one to another, the scripture says.
So we should confess our sins horizontally to our fellow man, to brothers and sisters in Christ.
Confess your sins one to another that you might pray for one another, that you might be healed, the scripture says.
But there's first and foremost, before we confess our sin to any man, First and foremost, the scripture says that we should confess our sin to the Lord.
In a confession of sin to the Lord, we are not informing the Lord of our sin.
He's omniscient and He knows all things.
We're not saying, Hey, God, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I really messed up.
I know you're not aware, but I need to bring it to your attention.
That's not what we're doing in confession of sin.
He already knows.
So then, what are we doing in confession?
What we're doing in confession is not informing the Lord, we're agreeing with the Lord and what He says, particularly about the severity of our sin.
And the tragic irony is that in Christian confession, so often we do precisely the opposite.
When we confess our sins to the Lord and when we confess our sins to fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, we often minimize our sin.
So, yeah, I sinned, but, you know, right, the buck stops here after you blame like 70 other people, right?
You might be familiar with a speech like that recently.
Right, the buck stops here.
I mean, it's the Afghani's fault and it's their fault and it's their, but ultimately I sin.
That's minimizing the severity of our sin.
That's not confession.
Because again, confession is not informing God.
He knows everything already.
So, confession is not informing God.
It is agreeing with God.
Agreeing with God about what?
Agreeing with God about what He says about our sin.
And guess what?
In God's perspective of sin, this thrice holy God who is holy, holy, holy, one of the things, one of the first things He says about our sin is that it's a big deal.
And so, anytime we find ourselves in confession, minimizing our sin, we are actually not confessing.
We are actually doing the opposite.
We are disagreeing with God.
To confess your sin is to agree with God about what?
About what He says about your sin.
And one of the first things that God says about your sin is that it's big, it's severe.
How serious is your sin?
It's so serious that the only way you could be pardoned is Jesus hanging out on a cross to die.
So, anytime you don't think your sin's a big deal, anytime you think your sin that all it really merits, all it really deserves is a light slap on the wrist, look to Calvary, look to the cross, see Christ bloodied and bruised, hanging out, bleeding for your forgiveness.
That's how serious your sin is.
In the very same breath, also see if you ever doubt the love of God, look to the cross.
See what God was willing to do in order to forgive you.
The cross shows us both the severity of our sin, it also shows us the severity of God's love.
It shows us what our sin deserves, and it also shows us what links God was willing to go to in order to forgive our sin.
We see both the holiness and wrath of God for sin in the cross, and we see the mercy and grace and forgiveness and love of God.
In the cross.
But in confession, all that being said, it is not informing God, it is agreeing with God.
And the first thing that we agree with God in regards to is the severity of our sin.
Our sin is a big deal.
It's not small, it's not someone else's fault.
We don't blame, we don't distract, we don't minimize, we don't make excuses.
We agree with God and what He says about the seriousness of sin.
So, David, He asks for forgiveness.
He pleads.
Even though he knows objectively he's already been forgiven, he asks for that forgiveness.
Secondly, he confesses his sin.
That is, he agrees with God over how serious his sin actually is.
The third thing that he does is notice this he doesn't just ask to be forgiven, but he asks to be restored.
Now, that's a whole other level.
See, you and I, a lot of times, what we do in our Christian life and our Christian walk is we sin, right?
We're not omniscient, we're finite, so the sin is news to us.
It happens, it occurs, we commit sin, we commit treason against God by breaking his law, and then we ask God, forgive me.
What we should do is ask God to forgive us, but then also ask God to restore us.
And David not only asked to be restored, but to be preserved.
Now, what this signifies, David asking to be restored and preserved, is this it signifies that David has a biblical understanding of not only sin as an action that one commits.
But sin as a condition, the human condition.
What David ultimately is doing is this He's saying, God, I'm asking you to forgive me of this particular sin, but I can't stop there because the situation is actually far worse.
So, this gets into the second element confessing being agreeing with God about the severity of sin.
So, he's saying, first, I'm asking for your forgiveness for this particular action, this sinful action I've just committed.
But then, secondly, I'm agreeing with how serious my sin is.
And therefore, I need to ask not just for forgiveness for this one isolated incident, but I need to ask for restoration.
I need you to change me.
Not just forgive my past action, a sin I committed, but I need you to change my condition.
Let me say it like this You are not a sinner because you sinned.
You sin because you're a sinner.
I'll say it again.
You are not a sinner because you sinned.
You sin because you are a sinner.
This is what David gets into.
He gets into this in verse 4 and verse 5.
In sin did my mother conceive me.
In iniquity I was brought forth.
He's saying, I have a sin habit?
Sure.
I commit sinful actions?
Sure.
But all that stems from the root problem, which is I have a sin nature.
I have a sinful condition.
So, yes, I'm asking you to forgive me.
But beyond that, I need to ask you not just to forgive that past sinful action, I need to ask you to change me, the sinful man.
Remember what Nathan says to David when he confronts him.
He tells him the parable.
David pronounces his own judgment This man should surely die.
And then what does Nathan say in response?
He doesn't say, You're the man who did that thing.
No, he doesn't say, but you did the thing.
No, he says, you are the man.
That's Nathan's response.
He cuts right to the heart of the issue, to the foundational problem.
He doesn't just say, you did the thing, David.
No, he says, you are the man, David.
Not just, you committed the sin, David.
No, you are the sinner, David.
And David takes that to heart.
And that's what we see in Psalm 51.
He doesn't just say, God, forgive me because I did the thing.
No, he says, God, restore me because I am the man.
Listen, your sinful actions are not mulligans.
Your sinful actions are not one offs.
I had a bad day.
You know, I mean, I'm usually not like this.
Yes, you are.
Yes, you are.
That's who you are.
A tree produces fruit.
And the fruit is the revelation, the manifestation, the evidence, the proof of the roots of that tree.
Right?
So if you're producing apples all day long, you're like, man, I'm usually not like this.
I.
I swear I'm an orange tree and I make the best oranges, you know, but just, you know, for ever since I've been born in my entire existence, I've just been producing a lot of apples.
You know, you could hold to that narrative and say, I am a fantastic orange tree that just happens to continually make apples, or you could say, maybe I'm an apple tree.
I felt like an orange tree.
I wanted to be an orange tree.
I really like oranges.
I prefer oranges to apples, but all I've made is apples, so I guess I might be an apple tree.
Righteous Judgments Matter00:09:34
Your actions reflect your heart.
Right?
People, we always say, you know, you can't see my heart.
Don't judge my heart.
Well, the Bible says that God sees the heart, right?
So man looks at the outward appearance, but God sees the heart.
So there's a sense in which we, as finite creatures, not being omniscient, we cannot judge our neighbors or our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ in terms of their intent, motives, heart.
However, we cannot do that with 100% certainty.
But there is a sense in which we can and Even should judge not only the actions and words of our fellow man, but even their heart, because when a pattern is set up in terms of someone's actions or a pattern is set up in terms of their words, Jesus said that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
So if someone is always speaking in a certain way, according to Jesus, that reveals their heart.
So to make that kind of judgment, and there's a difference, brothers and sisters, in being judgmental in a self righteous, arrogant fashion versus making wise spiritual judgments.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians, the spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is subject to no man's judgment.
So Christians are called to make judgments because you know what a judgment is?
A judgment is simply discernment.
How many times does the New Testament say again and again and again that Christians should be discerning?
And not just discerning about ideology, not just discerning about substance and content, but discerning about people.
We need to discern not only false teaching, but false teachers, not just bad doctrine, but those who peddle such doctrines.
This isn't, there's a way of making judgments without being self righteous and judgmental.
To say as the Puritans do.
The Puritans, they said, there go I, but for the grace of God.
So, I can judge not just a false teaching, but a false teacher.
And I can even address them and call them out by name, as Paul does with Hymenaeus and Alexander in 1 Timothy 1.
I can do all of that without being judgmental.
I can make a judgment, a right judgment, according to God's word, in order to protect the sheep from error, from heresy, from poison.
So, we're called to make judgments, aka be discerning.
And there's a way of being discerning, making judgments without being judgmental.
Right?
The favorite verse of every mediocre, half hearted Christian, you know, like, don't judge.
Which is just insane.
Have you read Matthew chapter 7?
Right?
Do not judge, for with the same judgment that you judge others, it will be done unto you.
The very next verse, I believe it's the first five verses that say, don't judge.
The very next verse, verse 6, I believe it is Matthew 7 6 says, do not give to swine or to dogs what is holy.
And do not cast your pearls before swine.
Well, how do you know who a dog is?
How do you know who swine are?
You make a judgment.
So, literally, the first five verses Jesus says, Don't judge, but also, the very next breath without skipping a beat, the very next verse, but also make a judgment and don't waste your time and precious resources, namely doctrine, on a swine that's simply going to ignore it and treat it as garbage.
So, Jesus says, Don't be judgmental, but make righteous judgments.
And the judgment that Jesus uses as an example is calling certain people swine.
Jesus didn't obey the 11th commandment.
Thou shalt be nice, not on Jesus' radar.
Not on his radar.
Jesus, author of Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice, that's not the Jesus of the Bible.
The Jewish version of Mr. Rogers, but that's not the Jesus of the Bible.
So we are called to make judgments.
There is a way to make judgments without actually being judgmental.
Now, everybody's going to call you judgmental, but ultimately you stand before God.
And it doesn't matter if people who've never actually read the Bible but claim to be Christians call you judgmental, because that's usually who it is.
People who don't know God's Word, they don't understand the fruit of the Spirit, they don't know how Jesus would define gentleness, they don't know what it means to actually love your neighbor as yourself, and yet these are the people giving moral lessons to courageous Christians in our day and age.
Don't listen to them.
Don't take your cues from the peanut gallery, because that's what they are.
They're the peanut gallery.
Take your cues from the Word of God, not people who have never actually even read the Word of God.
Take your cues from the Word of God.
So, you can make a judgment without being judgmental, aka discernment.
That's all it is.
Now, David, the point that I'm getting to is that David, he's asking for forgiveness.
He's then confessing his sin, which is agreeing with God about the severity of his sin, but then he's making a judgment about himself.
David is saying, Whoa, I recognize that the problem is way, way worse than I'd like to think it is.
The problem isn't just that I had a one off, a bad day.
I just had a bad day.
And I ended up sleeping with someone else's wife.
It was just a bad day.
I was under a lot of stress.
And then that bad day turned into a bad three months because I ended up sending that guy into battle and had a coup so everyone would abandon him and he would die and commit a murder.
It was a bad three months.
It was a one off.
It's not really who I am.
I'm not normally like this.
No, you are.
And David gets that.
Nathan says, not just you did the thing, or you did the two things.
No, he says, you are the man.
And David doesn't get defensive.
Listen to that, Christians.
David is confronted by a prophet.
We might say the preacher.
The preacher comes and preaches to David the word of God in such a way it convicts him of sin.
And David doesn't get mad at the preacher.
And this is King David.
He could have had Nathan's head.
But that's how a lot of Christians respond in the church today, right?
When the preacher preaches the word of God that indicts them for sin, their response, rather than saying, I am the man, He said, I'm the man.
I am the man.
God, restore me.
Don't just forgive me for this one sin I committed, but change me.
Restore me from my sinful condition.
Now, a lot of people today, the way they respond is they say, All right, so this guy said not only that I've committed sin, but that I am a sinner by nature and by choice, and that that's actually my condition, and that my worst days aren't mulligans or one offs, but it's actually a reflection of who I am, and that I'm actually a hopeless situation to the point where God has to actually supernaturally change my disposition.
To restore me, and then I can't even walk with God on my own, but He has to hold fast to me and preserve me all the way to the end, or I'm going to go to hell.
Okay, now I hear you.
I have two options I could listen and repent, or I can get on Twitter and say my pastor's really harsh and leave the church.
Yeah, most go with that one.
Most go with that one, at least in 2021.
Don't go with that one.
You know why?
Because I'm a pastor and I don't want you to say that and it's self serving?
Yeah, that's probably part of it because I'm a sinner.
But there's another part of it because it'll damn you.
That self defensive option, that disposition, that whenever someone, when the Lord mercifully sends someone into your life to convict you of sin, that automatic fleshly response, reaction that wants to immediately be defensive and turn it on them.
Right?
Well, okay, well, you know, even what he said, I mean, his theology was good, yeah, but I didn't like his tone.
If I had a dollar every time.
Whew.
Forget pastoral salaries.
Just give me a dollar every time someone says, I don't like your tone.
I mean, I would rival Benny Hinn.
I'm talking jet planes, I'm talking like the whole nine yards.
I mean, how often do we hear that in the church?
Tone, tone, tone, tone.
I didn't like his Twitter account.
I want someone who sounds humble.
Well, you know what I want?
I want someone who is humble.
I don't care what you sound like, because you can sound empathetic and you can sound humble and you can sound gracious.
And yet, your life and your arrogance and your decisions and your policy lead to 13 military members dead.
So, at the end of the day, it's not just about tone.
But you know what?
It's not just Americans.
Hear me.
It's evangelicals.
Evangelicals have bought into this squishy, half hearted, sensitive, effeminate disposition.
Tone.
You know what?
Tone matters.
The Bible talks about gentleness and tone.
Correct your opponents with gentleness, not knowing that God might grant to them also repentance.
Tone matters.
But nowhere in the Bible does it say how you say something trumps what you say.
Does tone matter biblically?
Does it matter to God?
Yes.
I'll tell you what it doesn't matter more than substance.
The first thing that we need to look at is content, not how you say something, what you say.
Substance Trumps Tone00:03:02
So, what does David do?
He doesn't get away from Nathan.
He doesn't say, right?
I mean, he could have done that.
You tricked me.
You know what?
This prophet, I mean, technically, yeah, I did murder Uriah and I did commit adultery with Bathsheba.
But you know, he was really deceptive in the way he confronted me of my sin.
He told his story and he got my emotions going to where I pronounced this judgment.
Nathan really, he kind of set me up.
That was manipulation.
That's spiritual abuse.
Spiritual abuse, right?
Spiritual abuse.
Emotional manipulation.
No, that's not what David does.
He owns it.
He doesn't defend.
He doesn't reflect.
He doesn't minimize.
He doesn't blame.
He owns it.
I did it, and it's not just what I did.
What I did reveals who I am.
Nathan said, I am the man, and Nathan's right.
I'm not going to get distracted with a beef with Nathan.
I'm going to go to the Lord.
I am that man.
And so he doesn't just ask for forgiveness, he asks for restoration.
This is what it means to ask to be restored and preserved.
It means going to God and saying, God, I just did blank, but the problem is way bigger.
And if all you do is forgive me for this past action of sin, The problem won't be solved because ultimately, what will happen is I'll do the same thing again and likely even worse.
My only hope, God, is not just that you forgive me for sinful actions, but that you supernaturally change me in regards to my sinful condition.
Because this isn't the thing I did, this is the man I am.
One more, just real clear illustration example.
If you're a man in the room and you struggle with lust, You are not a man who occasionally looks at pornography.
According to the Word of God, you are a pervert.
And that's precisely why you look at pornography.
So it's not just, I'm a man who slips up in this area.
No, you're a perverted man who is entirely comfortable with objectifying women and using them for your own selfish pursuits of pleasure.
And that's why you look at pornography.
So it's not, I'm a good man who occasionally slips up.
No, this slip up is defining.
This slip up is revealing.
This is who you are.
Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
And our actions also reveal who we are.
It's the fruit.
The fruit shows the root.
You can't produce apples all day long and say, orange tree roots.
No.
Apples, apple tree.
That simple.
Now, that doesn't mean you don't have any good fruit, also, but it means that you are at least a partially rotten tree.
So, what do you need?
You don't need God to just come and remove the bad fruit and tape onto your branches good fruit.
That might look like a solution, but it's not.
What do you need God to do?
You need God to go down into the soil all the way to the root.
Sorrow Fits Our Reality00:09:14
You need a transplant.
You need supernatural transformation.
You need to be restored.
And from that point, you need to be preserved.
The last thing that David does, which, by the way, I hope at this point you've realized I'm going.
Off notes, but I'm still hitting all the points in the text.
All right.
So the last thing that David does is he possesses a broken and contrite heart.
Now, for this, I want to use some notes because of fantastic quotes from Jonathan Edwards and also Matthew Henry.
Jonathan Edwards, he says this on the back of your notes All gracious affections, that is, feelings, emotions that are a sweet aroma to Christ, are brokenhearted affections.
A truly Christian love, either to God or men, is a humble, brokenhearted love.
The desires of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires.
Their hope is a humble hope, and their joy, even when it is unspeakable and full of glory, is a humble, broken hearted joy.
Contrition.
Ecclesiastes, chapter seven, verse two through four, says this, better to go to the house of mourning than the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind and the living lay it to heart.
Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.
The heart of the wise is in the house of the mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth, Matthew Henry.
He says this, when the wise man is in the house of feasting, his heart remains in the house of mourning, by way of sympathy to those who are in sorrow.
It is the character of a fool that his heart is in the house of mirth.
His heart is all upon, is all upon it to be merry and jovial.
His whole delight is in the sport, is in sport and gaiety, in merry stories, merry songs, in merry company, merry days, and merry nights.
If he be at any time in the house of mourning, he is under a restraint.
His heart, at the same time, is in the house of merriment.
This is his folly.
That's his foolishness.
And helps to make him more and more foolish.
The common proverb says, An ounce of merriment is worth a pound of sorrow.
But the preacher, and this is him commentating on Ecclesiastes 7, the preacher teaches us a contrary lesson sorrow is better than laughter, more agreeable, why?
To our present state, where we are daily sinning and suffering ourselves more or less, and daily seeing the sins and sufferings of others.
While we are in a veil of tears, we should conform to the temper of the climate.
There is great joy to be had in Christ, not only in the life to come, but in this life here and now, the abundant life.
But it's a serious joy.
There's gladness, but it's a somber gladness.
There's excitement, but it's a brokenhearted excitement.
Why?
Because our disposition should match the climate, says Matthew Henry.
My concern as a pastor is that there are many people who have a shallow joy.
It's not the fruit of the Spirit that is joy.
It's not a joy that actually comes from a profound belief and understanding of the gospel and the free grace of Christ Jesus.
No, it's a joy that comes by being completely oblivious to the real sufferings and the real sins of this world.
There are many people who are happy today not because they have joy in the midst of suffering, but because they have somehow distracted themselves from the mere existence of suffering.
They pretend as though this world is not ravaged by sin, which we know it is.
They have found a way to distract themselves and to hide themselves from the news, from the realities of suffering, the realities of evil, the realities of war, the realities of sin.
And they not only have distracted themselves from these realities of sin and suffering in the world around them, but they have even more fearfully found a way to distract themselves or convince themselves otherwise in regards to the suffering and sin of their own hearts.
Most people that I find today with a light, trivial joy.
It does not come by the fruit of the Spirit.
Rather, it comes by an ignorance to the doctrine of depravity.
It is a person, it represents a person, nine times out of ten, who is not well versed in the understanding of sin, namely their own sin as a condition.
It is a person who has never really gotten in touch with the depths of their own wickedness.
But the preacher in Ecclesiastes 7 says that sorrow is better than laughter.
Why?
Because it's fun to be sorrowful?
No.
Because it's appropriate.
You know why sorrow is better than laughter?
I'll say this and I'm going to cut myself off.
The reason why sorrow is better than laughter is because truth is better than deception.
And sorrow in this life is more fitting to the truth, the reality of where we are and the world we live in, and our own sin within our own hearts.
Sorrow is more truthful to the actual environment, the actual situation, than laughter.
So when the preacher in Ecclesiastes 7 says, sorrow is better than merriment, Well, if you take that at a literal level, then you would have to say that in heaven we're all going to be chronically depressed for eternity.
That's not what he's saying.
He's saying sorrow in this life is better than merriment, not because sorrow is objectively better than happiness or joy.
No, sorrow is better in this life because truth is better than delusion.
And the only way you could have this lighthearted, trivial merriment in this life is by delusion.
So, sorrow is better than merriment in this life because an accurate understanding of the reality of things is better than delusion.
So, when he says in Ecclesiastes 7, the preacher, sorrow is better than joy, he doesn't mean in objective terms.
He means sorrow is better than joy here because truth is better than delusion.
And if you don't feel a sense of sorrow over, first and foremost, your own sin, and then secondarily, a sense of sorrow over the sin that you see in those you love, your family, your friends, And then a sorrow and a grief for the American evangelical church and all of its shortcomings today and all this compromise.
And then beyond that, a sorrow, a godly sorrow over our nation and America and its state of apostasy and the way that we've rejected the principles and laws of God.
If you don't feel a sense of sorrow over these things, it's not because you're somehow a superhero Christian that has joy in such a capacity that it overwhelms the sorrow.
No, it's because you're a deluded, self deceiving Christian who doesn't.
Want to look at the reality of life.
When someone comes into wisdom, they come into sorrow.
With much wisdom comes much sorrow.
And with much knowledge, much vexation.
The trivial, light hearted Christian is usually the Christian without wisdom and knowledge.
So we want to embrace wisdom and knowledge, the reality of what God says about sin, and the reality of our sinful world, and most importantly, our sinful selves, in such a way that it brings us to sorrow.
And there, on our knees with contrition, there find the joy that is only found in Christ Jesus.
The morning that overwhelms the night.
Sorrow lasts for the night, but the joy comes in the morning.
And that morning is coming.
And that's what we ultimately look to.
We put our hope in that glorious morning with Christ Himself, not distraction, but Christ as the one who promises to wipe away every tear.
Those are the four key elements of Christian repentance.
Asking for forgiveness, confessing the severity of our sin, asking not only to be forgiven, but to be restored and preserved, and all of this with a broken and contrite heart.
This is not how we gain God's love.
That's done by Christ alone.
But this is the subjective reality of how we gain an assurance of God's love in the midst of our failure.
Let's pray.
Father God, thank you for your word.
Bless it to your people.
I pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Oh, hi, I didn't see you there.
Thanks for sticking around.
I've got an important announcement to make.
That's the Theonomy and Postmillennialism Conference.
2023, May 5th, 6th, and 7th, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, Theonomy and Post Millennialism.
We've got the speakers that we've already had lined up.
That's Dr. James White, Dr. Joseph Boot, Dr. Gary DeMar, non doctor Pastor Joel Webbin.
But we also have a bonus speaker, and that is Dale Partridge from Real Christianity.
Perhaps you've heard of him.
If not, you should start listening to his podcast.
It's fantastic.
Dale Partridge is going to be joining our team.
Upcoming Conference Announcement00:00:25
We're going to have live panels on Friday night and Saturday night, where you'll be able to write in questions and get them answered.
We're also going to have a catered barbecue, Texas style barbecue meal on Friday that's a part of your registration fee.
All that is covered.
So you need to get that.
This is how you do it go and register right now at rightresponseconference.com.