David & Bathsheba III: Psalm 51

I. Introduction
A. We’ve been in familiar territory, talking about a scandal involving a ruler, a secret affair, a cover-up, a confession. We’ve heard it all before. But this time it’s a Bible story.
B. You remember the story (2Sam.11-12). It was a time of war but King David stayed home to relax. After his afternoon nap one day, he looked out from his palace roof and noticed a beautiful neighbor bathing outdoors. He inquired about her, sent for her and took her to his bed. Then he sent her home.
1. Thinking that was the end of the story, David was alarmed to receive a message from the woman, Bathsheba, a few weeks later. She was pregnant.
2. This sends David scrambling for an escape. He devises a plan to bring Bathsheba’s husband home from the battlefront, where he was serving as one of David’s soldiers.
3. After commending Uriah for his good service, he dismisses him to return home to his wife, thinking that this would make Uriah think the baby was his own.
4. But Uriah refused to go in to wife, even after David presses him, in solidarity with his fellow soldiers who were camping out on the battlefield.
5. So David resorts to arranging with his general for Uriah to be killed in battle. This plan is successful and when Bathsheba receives the news she is crushed. Apparently not knowing David’s role in her husband’s death, Bathsheba agrees to become a wife of David.
6. Once again, David assumes the story is over, but it’s not. There’s one Person who has watched all this and isn’t at all happy with David. So God sends the prophet Nathan to confront David with his famous story about the rich man and the poor man with only one ewe lamb.
7. David repents and God forgives but not before a long list of terrible consequences are outlined by God’s prophet, the first being the death of David and Bathsheba’s baby.
C. At least two psalms seem to come out of the David & Bathsheba story: Psalms 32 and 51. We’re going to look at both, but we’ll start with Psalm 51 because it seems to have been written in the midst of David’s repentance whereas Psalm 32 seems to have been written after it.
1. Of course, we don’t know for sure when either of these psalms were written or who wrote them.
2. In the case of Psalm 51 the heading says, A PSALM OF DAVID, WHEN NATHAN THE PROPHET WENT TO HIM, AFTER HE HAD GONE IN TO BATHSHEBA.
3. And all indications are that it was written by David, and there is no historical situation in David’s life as we know it in which this could have been written.
4. However, as I’ve taught you in the past, we should not think of these headings as the word of God, but as traditions or as the opinions of copyists.
II. I want to make several points about this psalm in general.
A. Some are embarrassed by this story. Some might be wondering why I would choose to do a series on this instead of finding some story which is constructive, wholesome or even heroic.
1. Perhaps this story has been used against some of us by non-believers who scoff at David — and at believers with him — for being hypocrites.
2. The sad reality is that believers – like David – sometimes act just like non-believers. This shouldn’t shock us. The fact is that when we look at David, when see all his attempts to hide his sin, you know who we are seeing? We are seeing ourselves.
3. This is not David. This is Adam. And Adam is in me. And Adam is in you.
4. And yet I would argue that there’s an important difference between believers like David and non-believers. And I think we see that difference vividly when we come to Psalm 51.
5. You can find loads of people who sinned like David — believers and non-believers. But find me a non-believer who has a place to go with his sin like we see David has in Psalm 51.
6. What this world needs is not people who pretend they have no sin. It needs people who freely admit their sin but who proclaim a message of repentance and forgiveness, people who show by their own example that there is a Savior who takes away the guilt of sin.
7. We have good reason to face up to our sin: we have hope, we have a Savior, we have forgiveness.
8. It makes sense that non-believers avoid responsibility for sin. They have no Savior.
9. We’re just like the world if we pretend we’re good. We’re just like the world if we blame others.
10. The world doesn’t need upright examples of moral superiority, they need examples of fellow sinners who have found restoration and acceptance in the arms of the forgiving Christ.
11. The world needs to know about the glory of having a place to go when you come to the end of yourself! When you finally come to your senses and realize your life is meaningless and vain, there’s a home you can return to, a father who is eager to receive you in love and forgiveness.
B. To be honest, I used to find it hard to have compassion on David. That’s how self-righteous I was.
1. I was not aware enough of my sin to feel the oppression of a guilty conscience like David does in Psalm 32:3-4, “My bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.”
2. I had not yet wept over how my sin had damaged the ones I loved. I had not yet felt the grief of seeing that I had stuck my finger in God’s eye.
3. Now, not only do I feel for David in his brokenness, but I identify with him in his sin.
4. I don’t know about you, but “I do not understand my own actions. For I don’t do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate... I have the desire to do right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I don’t do the good I want to do, but the evil I don’t want to do is what I keep on doing... When I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in God’s law in my heart, but there’s something else in me waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin. Wretched man that I am!” (Romans 7:15–24) Do you feel this too? It’s distressing!
5. All this is packed into David’s first desperate words in Psalm 51: “Have mercy on me, O God!”
6. He knows he’s guilty. He knows he doesn’t have any ground to stand on before God.
7. His plea for mercy is not based on the smallness of his sin, or his good record beforehand, nor even on his heart after God. There is no minimizing here.
8. 1 “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.”
9. David knows all about hiding what he’s done, all about minimizing his sin and justifying himself and blaming others. He’s tried all those things.
a. He also knows about doing religious things to try to wash away his guilty conscience. You see that in v.16 “You will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.”
b. He knows these things only lead to separation from God and the burden of guilt: v.3 “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.”
c. He knows the only way to get right with God is to come clean and face the truth. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Ps.51:17
C. There are two things the psalmist is looking for from God.
1. Forgiveness:
a. Unlike most of mankind, David knew that his biggest problem was not discouragement or poverty or sickness or danger or a lack of encouragement, but guilt.
b. You see, David knows God cares about sin, even hates sin. He is a just and perfectly righteous judge.
c. Psalm 51:1 “According to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! 7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.”
d. Now Christ hadn’t yet come in that day, so David did not know about the cross.
(1) But God had given them the sacrificial system in the OT to teach them about the blotting out of sin by transferring it to another and that substitute being killed in our place for our sin.
2. Healing of heart
a. Sin not only produces guilt, but it does damage to the human heart, and it had done so to David’s heart. Before his sin, he had enjoyed a sweet communion with God, a life-giving fellowship similar to the relationship between the poor shepherd and his one precious ewe lamb Nathan described in his story. And now that was gone.
b. That’s what sin does. It wasn’t the good shepherd who had changed, it was David who had been taken away by his own devilish desires. For we all like sheep go astray (Is.53:6).
c. And David understands that only God can restore his heart. So, he cries out to God:
d. “Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice... Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me... Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.” (Psalm 51:8, 10, 12)
e. I am especially fond of v.8 “Let the bones that you have broken rejoice.”
(1) Think about what David is communicating here. His physical bones were not broken. He’s describing the brokenness he feels in his heart.
(2) The bones were broken not by the sin, but by the Lord's discipline. Look again at Psalm 32:3-4: “For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.”
(3) The world knows plenty about feeling in your heart like your bones have been crushed. But the world knows nothing of broken bones rejoicing. But that’s what God in His grace does!
D. The first of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses on the Wittenberg Door in 1517 was that repentance ought to be a daily lifestyle, not an exception activity when we’ve committed an especially heinous sin. In light of this truth, all of us need to ask ourselves if we are living in unrepented sin. In Ps.51 we find certain symptoms of unrepented sin which we can use for self-reflection:
1. Loss of a clear conscience and a right heart
a. Psalm 51:10 “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. 12 ...uphold me with a willing spirit.” He had tried to have these things on his own, but failed.
2. Joylessness
a. One of the consequences of sinning is the loss of joy.
b. Joy is the emotion of being in fellowship with God. And when you sin, you lose that.
c. 8 “Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice.” 12 “Restore to me the joy of your salvation.”
d. (Notice, it’s not: “Restore to me your salvation” but “Restore to me the joy of your salvation.”)
3. Loss of praise
a. He lost his ability to worship and praise. He tried. He went to worship. But it just wasn’t happening. He went through the motions, but it was empty.
b. And he knows why. His sin has created a barrier and needs to be addressed.
c. So he cries out in 15-17: “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”
4. Damage to one’s usefulness in ministry.
a. Psalm 51:12-13 “Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.”
5. Maybe you, like me, have some repenting to do.
III. Conclusion: In Acts 3:19–20 Peter says, “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”
A. In the Bible, an essential part of repentance is the celebration part the return of the prodigal son part — Luke 15:11-32, the angels rejoicing in heaven part — Luke 15:3-10.
B. True repentance does not end in a dungeon, or with self-flagellation.
C. True repentance does not end on the field of human endeavor. True repentance ends with a party, with a celebration, with a worship service.

IV. What about v.11? “Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.”
A. This may seem like a difficult verse. How could the Holy Spirit leave a true believer like David?
B. We must be careful not to read a NT understanding of the Holy Spirit into this verse.
C. Actually for me the difficulty in this verse is that there are two really good explanations of what’s going on here and I don’t know which is correct.
1. One possibility is that what this means is not the Holy Spirit but a spirit of holiness. David is asking God to restore his heart. He asks for a right spirit or a spirit of righteousness in v.10. In v.12 he asks for a willing spirit, or a spirit of willingness. Later in v.17 he assures himself that God will accept a broken spirit, that is, a spirit of brokenness. Is it not possible that in v.11, in between these two, he’s asking that a spirit of holiness not be taken from him?
2. There are not that many references to the Holy Spirit in the OT. And about half of them are predictions of the coming of the Holy Spirit in the NT. But the other mentions of the Holy Spirit are usually in the context of Him coming upon someone to empower them to do something that they would otherwise be powerless to do.
a. E.g.
(1) prophecy - e.g. 2Chronicles 24:20
(2) a special skill – e.g. Bezalel and Oholiab
(3) a special feat of strength – e.g. Samson
(4) or to fulfill a certain position of leadership, e.g. Joshua, Othniel, Jephthah, Samson, Gideon.
b. Saul is an example of this. When he became king we are told that he was anointed with oil and the Spirit of the Lord came upon him (1Sam. 10:1,6,7; 11:6) to equip him for his royal task. But later when Saul sinned and God determined to take the kingdom away from Saul and transfer it to David, the Spirit of the Lord left Saul (1Sam.16:14) and went to David (simultaneous to Samuel anointing David as king – 1Sam.16:13). Then when David sins (Bathsheba/Uriah) and God sends Nathan to confront him (as God sent the prophet Samuel to confront Saul with respect to his sin), David is afraid that the kingdom will be taken away from him as it was from Saul when he sinned. So David, in the midst of his repentance, pleads with God that this would not happen: "Do not take your Holy Spirit from me." (Ps. 51:11) So, the presence of the Spirit upon David referred to in this verse was connected to his role as king, not to his salvation or his fellowship with the Lord, except as these were affected by his role as king.