The Punishment That Brought Us Peace Was Upon Him

STUDY: #865- CHURCH IN THE HOUSES FROM: JULY 28, to AUGUST 3, 2015

Topic: "The Sinner's Guide" Psalm 51: 10-12 "Create in me, O God, a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and a willing spirit sustain me.” We were sinners ... now we have to see how we can hold firm so that we can walk before God clean and victorious. The Lord has paid the price for our sins because we have repented; we have to learn to stand firm in our repentance. The heart and mind are quick to want to stray. So the psalmist David, in his experience of falling into sin, looks to being restored and lifted by God. He says: “Create in me!” …What did David asked from God? To create something good and new in him. In such a way has sin destroyed a life? So much that the Creator must be invoked again? This happened in the life of David. Evil has brought great ruin among mankind! “Create in me!” this man would ask God, in desperation. To create is to make something from nothing. It is not to start from something you already have, and make something better out of it. Not that it's as simple as learning to be free again, as if we could be taught to be good. It is not that easy, because evil has been inside man since Adam. On the outside, we seem to be well, seems like we have a very good life, and speak greatness, in appearance; but when we sin before God, we are empty inside, like a desert. There is a need, then, to cry out as David did. With his words, the psalmist king seems to say to God: "Come now and that your power may be seen in a new creation within me. You made me, in the beginning of my existence, a man in this world; but now, Lord, create a NEW MAN in me. Put in me now a CLEAN HEART." In verse seven he asks to be cleansed: “Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me and I will be whiter than snow. "(vs. 7) Now he looks for a suitable heart to this state of cleanliness. But he does not say: "cleanse my old heart." The psalmist has much experience in the futility of the old nature. David wants the old man left dead and buried and that a NEW CREATION takes its place. No one but God can create, in someone who humbles and repents, a new heart and a new life. "... And renew a right spirit within me ..." (vs. 10) "Do not throw me out of your presence, your face and your favor, like Cain. Let me sit among those who share your love, even attending the door. I deserve to be forever denied entry in your courts; but oh, good Lord, allow me this privilege yet. Do not take your Holy Spirit from me.” (I Samuel 16:13 "And Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and from that day on the Spirit of the Lord came upon David.") We are lost if God withdraws from us His Holy Spirit. "Cast me not away from thy presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me." (Vs. 11) That the Spirit will always be with us! David knew this well since Saul’s sad experience. How criminal and miserable did King Saul become when the Spirit of God left him! (I Samuel 16:14 "The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and he was tormented by an evil spirit from the Lord.") Because of this, the psalmist David asks God with much interest that the same does not happen to him. It's like saying to God: "I shudder just to think of the consequences; Lord, please deliver me from this fate." "Restore to me the joy of thy salvation ... "(v 12a). No one but God can return this joy. He can do it; we can ask. He will do it for his own glory and for our benefit. This joy follows forgiveness and purification; in this order it is certain. THE GOD WHOM YOU SERVE IS A GOD OF GRACE; WHAT YOU HAVE LOST HE CAN RESTORE! It was not God who took away the joy of salvation from the psalmist. There are men who are daring and foolish to accuse God of taking it away, but it is they, themselves, who lose their joy when they turn back to walk in their sins. David was conscious and clear it was his doing. "... and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me." (V 12b). In Vs. 10: "renew a right spirit within me.", we see David pleading with God that He may give him a noble spirit to support his poor fragile life, so that he may not fall, that he be sustained. "A noble spirit to withhold my flesh, to avoid falling." A noble spirit that is not evil but faithful, generous, helpful and gives of what he has to others, without expecting anything in return. While the Spirit resides in my heart, it deadens me to sin. David had lost his confidence in himself; his confidence is not now on the arm of flesh. So he asks: “Renew a right spirit within me!” Totally dependent on God for full restoration. What we see here is a true guide for the sinner. God is the one who can marvelously lift and hold us to be able to walk again, pleasing Him and delighting in His great salvation. Amen.