Acknowledgment of the Source of Sin

The Third Ingredient of True Confession: Acknowledging the Root Source of Sin

0:04 There's no second-handed, half-hearted, obtuse, indirect mouthing of polite phrases about weakness or failure. Here this man in the presence of God, finding refuge in the mercy of God, acknowledges his awareness of the presence of sin or the fact of sin. Then in verse 4, he acknowledges the nature of sin. Against thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mayest be justified when thou speakest and be clear when thou judgest.

0:41 Lord, everything you've said about sin being rebellion against yourself is true. Lord, I own up to sin to be exactly what you've said it is. You're perfectly right in all that you've said about sin in its nature being rebellion against your authority and a violation of your rights. In your claims, Lord, I not only acknowledge the presence of sin, but I confess my recognition of the nature of sin.

1:07 That's a true element in all true biblical confession. Recognizing our sin is not against some abstract standard called the law or some abstract standard called Christian ethics or anything else, but it's against God. It's God's law that we violated. It's God's precepts that we have transgressed.

1:29 Now we come tonight to study the third ingredient of true confession as found in verse 5. For not only does true confession involve this painful awareness and acknowledgement of the presence of sin, verse 3, verse 4, this painful awareness and acknowledgement of the nature of sin, but verse 5, this painful awareness and acknowledgement of the root source of sin. Behold. I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

2:07 A better translation would be as if you have the ASV or the RSD, or probably the Berkeley version. Behold, not I was shapen in iniquity, but a better translation of that word shapen is I was brought forth in a state of iniquity, and the word iniquity there means perversity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. And the Hebrew word here means she warmed me. In my fetal stage of development, I was a developing sinner, as I was kept warm in the womb of my mother.

2:44 This is what David is saying. Now to think our way through the text, I want to follow the old Puritan outline. First of all, we want to state the meaning of the text, then the doctrine of the text, and then the use or the application of the text. I do not often follow the old Puritan outline, but I want to tonight because I feel it's the best way to get across the truth that is embodied in this passage.

Meaning of the Text: What David Did and Did Not Mean

3:09 Now what is the meaning of the text? When David said in this aspect or this part of his confession, Behold, I was brought forth in a state of iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me or warm me, what did he mean? Well, let's start with the negative. What did he not mean?

3:29 Well, he was not condemning the conjugal act by which he was conceived. Some who have had a very ascetic and unscriptural view of the whole matter of marriage and the place of sexual union within marriage have tried to find in this text some kind of a reference to the fact that the conjugal act by which human life is conceived is in itself sin. Certainly David is not saying this, and to make the text say this, is to twist and rest the word of God. For the scripture tells us in Genesis chapter 1 in the beginning, God made them male and female and God blessed them in that state and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply,

4:14 so that God, as it were, put the kiss of his blessing upon all that was involved in the propagation of the human race. In the second place, David was not excusing his sin. He is not saying, Well, Lord, I did it, but...

4:29 I really couldn't help it because my nature is so sinful that I was sort of the helpless victim of that to which my nature led me. No, David is not excusing his sin by tracing his sin back to his conception as a sinner. And in the third place, he's certainly not blaming his mother for it. He's not saying, Well, if it hadn't been for my mother and father who passed on this sinful nature to me, I never would have committed adultery and murder.

4:56 No, David is doing none of those things. Well, if he's not doing that, what is he doing when he declares in the midst of this confession, My sin is ever before me, and you know what those sins are. Adultery, murder, intrigue, lying, almost a year of living in hypocrisy and spiritual barrenness. He acknowledges the presence of his sin.

5:20 Then he acknowledges the nature of sin. Against thee have I sinned. Now, why does he all of a sudden shift gears and say, Behold, I was shapen in iniquity. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity.

5:29 And in sin did my mother conceive.

5:35 Well, I believe to every true child of God, the meaning of the text is obvious. David is saying, in essence, O God, now that I have confessed the actual sins that I have committed, I want to acknowledge that not only is the sin which I have confessed given me occasion for humbling and for confessing my need for God, and for the sin which I have committed, but Lord, I would just as honestly bewail the fountain from which this stream of iniquity flowed, as well as bewail the fact of the presence of the stream. I acknowledge, O Lord, that not only is what I have done,

6:20 not only is that bad, but what I am. I acknowledge, O Lord, that I have sinned, but something else I sinned because I am a sinner. I acknowledge, O Lord, that I have sinned, I not only acknowledge, that I am guilty, but that I am defiled. I acknowledge, O God, that what I have done has its roots in what I am.

6:41 This is a tremendous confession. Here is a man, probably about 50 years of age,

6:48 a man who has had tremendous experiences with God. This is the man who was a young man in his twenties, probably, all the little ditties about only a boy named David notwithstanding. He was called a mighty man of valor, probably in his early twenties when he slew Goliath. Here is the man who has been anointed to be king.

7:06 He was seen the mighty victories of God in all the tremendous spiritual experience. And then, in spite of all this, as a man of 50, he falls prey to the sins of lust and adultery and murder and all the rest. We don't want to go over that foul ground any more than is necessary. And what he is doing when he stands before God is saying, in essence, this, O God, what I have done as a mature, man of 50, as a mature saint, as a man after your own heart, O God, what I did here in time at age 50, if I trace it back to its source, I end up with this conclusion,

7:50 that what David did at age 50 began at his very conception when he was conceived a sinner. And this act, 50 years later, or almost 50, 51 years later, was simply another manifestation of that which was conceived when I was given life in the womb of my mother. That's what David's doing. He's taking the sin of the present and tracing it back to its ultimate source and roots in the nature with which he was born.

8:27 This and nothing less than this does justice to these words, Behold, I was brought, brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. The fact that David is acknowledging the depravity of human nature, which is the root source, the foul fountain out of which all the streams of iniquity flow, and in this context, he is not acknowledging it in such a way as to excuse the aggravation or lessen the aggravation of his guilt, but it's bound up in the whole problem of his guilt. He's not, he's not confessing this to somehow back off or get off the hook. He's saying, Oh God, my confession of sin is not complete,

9:11 simply acknowledging what I've done. Oh God, I must acknowledge what I am. What I've done has been against your law, but God, what I am, my very nature is against you. I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Doctrine of the Text: Original Sin and Total Depravity

9:29 So much then for the meaning of the words themselves. Now what is the doctrine of the text? As the old Puritans would take their people through, the meaning of the text, the words themselves. Now what doctrine is bound up in this text?

9:45 Well, frankly, I am convinced, and God's people have been through the years, that it's one of the strongest declarations of the biblical doctrine of original sin. The fact that men are sinners not because when they come to a certain age that has been called, the age of accountability, they do some bad things. No, no. Men are sinners because they are born sinners.

10:17 This is one of the clearest statements to be found in all of the length and breadth of the word of God. And that fact does not excuse the sin. David confesses it as a very part of his guilt and the pollution of his nature. Now this, if it were found only here in Psalm 51, it would be one.

10:40 One could question whether such a doctrine could be built upon the text. But this is the united witness of the entire word of God, both Old and New Testaments. I want you to look with me very quickly at three or four key texts in the Old Testament which affirm this basic doctrine that David reiterates in Psalm 51 and then several texts in the New Testament. Will you turn, please, to the book of Genesis?

11:08 To the book of Genesis, Genesis chapter 6 and verse 5. This is just a few generations removed from Adam prior to the deluge, the sending of the flood. And this is the reason why God determined to destroy the world with the flood. Genesis 6 and verse 5.

11:37 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that the imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil. And it repented the Lord that he made man and the earth and it grieved him at his heart and the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast and creeping things and fowls of the air, for it repented me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Now let's not forget that this was not a race of adults alone.

12:17 It was an entire population of people. It was an entire population It was an entire population composed of children to hoary-headed adults and old men and women. And God looks down and says of this whole generation, the imagination of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually. And by inference, that takes in even children.

12:37 But we need not base a doctrine upon inference, for the Word of God gives its own commentary upon this in chapter 8 and verse 21,

12:50 where we read Genesis 8, 21, the Lord smelled a sweet savor and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth.

13:11 The imagination of his heart is evil from his youth. And God says, I will restrain myself in sending judgment, not that man does not deserve judgment, but I shall deal in grace with sinful man. And so we have this declaration in Genesis that the imagination of the thought of the heart was only evil continually and it was this from youth so that it's not something that comes by way of example. That's the teaching of Pelagius, the British monk of the fourth century, who tried to teach that every man is his own atom.

13:47 You're born sort of neutral. You're not positively disposed to evil. You're not positively disposed to good. You stand sort of in between and when you come to an age, age of discretion, why then most of us sort of make the wrong choice because there's bad example and there's some of the evil effects of sin in the world and the creation and he tried to explain away the fact that all men are sinful by saying it was a matter of following bad example.

14:11 No, no, that's not the teaching of the Scripture. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. The imagination of the thoughts of the heart is evil continually. The imaginations of his heart evil from his youth.

Scriptural Support for Original Sin (Old Testament)

14:26 Notice the statement of Job in chapter 14.

14:31 Job chapter 14. We're seeking to see the support of the doctrine taught in Psalm 51.5 from the concurring witness of the rest of the Scriptures.

14:45 Job 14. Notice the subject. Verse 1. Man that is born of a woman is of a few days and full of trouble.

14:56 He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down. He flees as a shadow and continueth not. And dost thou open thine eyes upon such an one and bringest me into judgment with thee? Then he asks a profound question.

15:12 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.

15:21 Job faced this tremendous dilemma. How can it be that man who's born of woman whose days are few and full of trouble, how can it be that one shall come forth clean in this great progressive unfolding of humanity as one generation gives birth to another and another to another? Can you bring something clean out of that which is unclean? Can sinful parents give birth to that which is unstained by sin?

15:52 The answer, of course, is obvious. And the Scripture itself answers that question for us. Now there is a powerful witness in Psalm 58 when David, David declares Psalm 58 and verse 3.

16:10 The wicked are estranged from the age of accountability. They go astray as soon as they come to the age of accountability. That isn't what the Bible says. The wicked are estranged from the what?

16:30 From the womb. They go astray as soon as they be born. Speaking lies. Everyone who's a parent understands that not all language needs to be verbal symbols.

16:48 You've seen your children lie to you. Act like they were dying and all they wanted was a little attention. Saying, Mom, I'm dying. Help me.

16:59 They weren't dying. They were just itching for a little attention. See the deceptiveness. I had a friend of mine who was a Pelagian.

17:08 He believed the doctrine that all... All men are born neutral and you just become a sinner by example.

17:15 And until you came to age of discretion, whatever that age was, and came to the age of accountability, whatever that is, you weren't a sinner. That sin was something that came in from the outside. It didn't rise up from the inside. Well, you see, one of the reasons he believed that is he was an only child.

17:32 He didn't have any brothers and sisters. But I had a batch of them being one of eleven children. He was being second oldest. He lived in the area.

17:40 And he told me some years later, what cured him of his Pelagianism was when he was in the home one time and my baby sister who's now thirteen, Debbie, was just about a year old. And he saw her throw a downright old-fashioned temper tantrum that was just plain wickedness. That's all. And he said, now wait a minute.

18:01 She's not deliberately, knowingly, violating a clear law of God that she understands. She certainly hasn't come to what we call age of accountability and discretion. And yet he said, I can't call what she's doing virtue. I can't call it just a natural animal reaction.

18:18 That's vicious anger and temper. And right then and there his Pelagianism got cured. And he says, I think I know what the Bible means now when it talks about being conceived and sent. He saw the living demonstration of the rising up and the breaking out from within of a tendency to evil and to wickedness and corruption.

18:40 That's what David is talking about. The wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray as soon as they be born. Speaking lies.

18:51 This is the witness of Isaiah in chapter 48 and in verse 8 where he declares Isaiah 48 and verse 8. Yea, thou heardest not. Yea, thou knewest not that from the time that thine ear was not opened. For I knew that thou wouldst deal very treacherously with me.

19:13 And was called a transgressor from the womb. When that child fails to love God, his first conscious thoughts being loved to God in perfect love to his neighbor, he's a transgressor. Yes, he is. He's a transgressor from the womb.

Scriptural Support for Original Sin (New Testament)

19:37 That's the witness of the key text in the Old Testament. What sayeth the Scripture in the New Testament? Let me very quickly quote the verses you're familiar with most of them, I'm sure. John 3 and verse 6.

19:49 Our Lord says to baffled Nicodemus who wants to know why he of all people with all of his culture and education and religious refinement should need something so radical as a birth from above. And our Lord says I'll tell you why, Nicodemus. John 3 and verse 6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh.

20:10 It cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. It's defiled. It's polluted. That which is born of flesh is flesh.

20:16 He doesn't say that which becomes flesh at an age of accountability. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. Isn't that what our Lord said? That which is born of the flesh is flesh.

20:31 The statement of Paul in Ephesians 2 and verse 3 where he's described what all men are by nature in verses 1 and 2. Dead in trespasses and sins. Walking according to the course of this world. Then he comes to a climax and says in the last phrase of verse 3 and we work by nature children of wrath even as others.

20:55 He did not say we were when we came to an age of accountability children of wrath. He said we were by nature the children of wrath even as others. He said we were what we were because it was the natural disposition of our hearts and of our inner being. And our Lord gave that incisive declaration in Mark 7 21 for from within out of the heart of man.

21:23 Not from within out of the heart of men who come to some so-called age of accountability. Wherever there's man there's that potential cesspool of wickedness. And he said out of the heart of men proceed adultery, fornication, theft, uncleanness. And he mentions in the midst of those things some sins that I think I see even in my own precious little children long before they can understand a word of English.

21:52 Listen to some of the other things put in the midst of those grosser sins committed by adults. Listen.

22:00 Evil thoughts. What's an evil thought? Any thought contrary to love. Any thought contrary to the purity and holiness required in God's law.

22:13 You see your children when little little thoughts thinking evil thoughts you see Heidi and Beth.

22:21 Me first. My horsey. I started saying that at 14, 15 months. Thoughts of selfishness.

22:31 Me first. Mine. No. Not you.

22:36 Mine. Thoughts of evil. Evil thoughts. Selfish thoughts.

22:40 Listen what else our Lord puts in there.

22:44 Covetousness. Grasping after things.

22:49 Every time you go shopping somewhere they've got more than 99 out of 100 kids in the rest of the world. Mommy can I have this? Mommy can I have that? Daddy can I have this?

23:00 Daddy can I have that? And if you gave them the store they'd be going next door next day.

23:06 Mommy so and so has got a toy I don't have. Can I have that? Where's that come from?

23:12 It's a heart full of covetousness. You see it in a little child? How'd he get there?

23:18 How'd he get there?

23:21 Behold I was brought forth in a mick with him and in sin did my mother conceive.

23:31 When I'm teaching children I like to ask the question we got some children here tonight? Five? Ask the question how many of you kids had to learn your ABC's? Did you have to learn them?

23:42 Were you born knowing or did you have to learn them? Everybody under 12 answer me. Did you have to learn your ABC's? Did you?

23:47 Yes or no? Raise your hand if you did. Did you have to learn them?

23:53 Oh some of you were brilliant. You were born knowing them. No you had to learn them. Sure you did.

23:57 Alright you may put your hand down. You had to learn them. Did you have to learn how to tie your shoes? Yes.

24:02 And if you were lazy you just about gave your mom and dad fits when they tried to teach you that. Sure you had to learn how to tie your shoes. I hope you've learned by now haven't you? You had to learn how to eat.

24:14 But let me ask you something. Did you have to go to school to learn how to sass mom and dad? Did you have to go to school to learn that? Did you have to go to school and read a book to learn how to be selfish and how to disobey?

24:26 You're all shaking your head no. Well where did you learn that? You see you've got your own built in teacher and that built in teacher is your own wicked heart with which you were born. That's the teacher that goes with you everywhere.

24:40 That's the universal teacher. So you go into the bush in the darkest most pagan stone age environment and what will you find? Greed, selfishness, lust, pride, anger. Why?

24:52 This is the universal teacher because all men have been affected and inflicted with the terrible results of the fall of our first parents.

25:03 The introduction to the shorter catechism states it very clearly. What effect had the sin of Adam on all mankind? And the answer is all mankind are born in a state of misery and sin. And then the answer, what is this sinful nature that we inherit from Adam called?

25:22 The question and the answer, original sin. And then the next question, can anyone go to heaven with this sinful nature? And the answer, no, our hearts must be changed before we can be fit for heaven. The great doctrine of this text in Psalm 51.5 is the

25:39 doctrine of the original sin, of the depravity of human nature. And all of us are in the same boat, sinful to the core. All actual sin flowing from and rooted in original sin. Now not all men manifest that state of heart in the same way or to the same degree.

Application: Instruction in Self-Knowledge and True Confession

26:00 There may be factors which will keep it from certain manifestations, from the full development of those manifestations, but the text is still true that at the end of the core, every one of us is foul and depraved and corrupt and we're that way from the moment of our conception. So much then for the meaning of the text, for the doctrine of the text, now we come to what the Puritans would have called the use of the text or its application. First of all, it has some use for instruction to every one of us. Was it not one of the great philosophers who said, know thyself?

26:39 Well, let's cast aside the words of the philosopher and let's cast this principle biblically. You don't know yourself until you've joined David and known what it is to mourn before God, and I use that term in the sense that our Lord uses it in Matthew 5, spiritual mourning, to mourn before God the fact of the foul, polluted stream out of which all your actual sins flow. That stream being original sin, the depravity of your nature. You don't know yourself.

27:20 I don't know myself until I can enter in heartily with David when I'm confessing to God my sin. Perhaps it's not adultery. Perhaps it's not murder. Perhaps it's the angry word.

27:32 Perhaps it's the churlish attitude. Perhaps it's the selfish deed or the covetous spirit or the lustful desire, whatever it be.

27:41 It's not enough for me to acknowledge before God the presence of that sin. It's not enough to acknowledge the nature of it against God. But until I can enter in and say, oh God, what I've done in attitude or deed is rooted in what I am, oh Lord, behold, I'm sinful to the core. We don't know ourselves until we can pray that way honestly.

28:06 I shall never forget words that the late Dr. Tozer said on the tape that I heard in one occasion.

28:14 He said, there are many ugly sights that I've seen in my days, but he said, the ugliest sight I've ever behold, the hell, is the heart my mother gave me. I've never forgotten that. He said, I've beheld many ugly, distasteful things in my life, and this was a man who at the time was probably about 60, who had lived through two world wars, who himself had served for a while in the military in the first world war, who'd been a pastor and been in all the kinds of messy situations that pastors get involved in. He said, I've beheld many ugly things in

28:57 my days, but the ugliest thing I've ever beheld is the heart my mother gave me. That's entering into Psalm 51 5. That's knowing thyself.

29:13 And in the most kind, gentle, refined, well-disciplined culture, adult,

29:22 child, man, woman in this building, there is the potential for every form of wickedness that's ever been spawned by the wretched nature of humanity. And if you don't know it, you don't know yourself.

29:41 Oh, that we might be instructed from the doctrine of this text to know ourselves. In the second place, may we be instructed to know what true confession involves, that it's tracing our sin back to its source and being humbled for the source as well as for the sin. Do we know anything of that? David has given us the pattern.

30:03 The Holy Ghost, through David's experience, is teaching us what it means to be true penitents.

30:10 Some of you are troubled with why you return to the same sin so often. One of the reasons is the shallowness of your confession.

30:19 Surface confession usually leads to the repetition of the sin confessed. Usually. Now, this is not an absolute rule, but I believe it's a valid one. And this quick-lead kind of business that simply gives lip service to the presence of sin without pausing to feel the weight of the enormity of the nature of sin against God, tracing it back and being humbled for the source of sin, my own foul, corrupt nature that I received at my conception.

30:52 Perhaps that's why some of us go back so quickly to those very sins. Oh, that we might be instructed from the doctrine of this text not only to know ourselves, but to know the nature of true confession, that it involves being humbled by the source of sin. Yes, as well as the substance of our sin. And then the third instruction that I trust we receive from the text is that we'll not be brainwashed by environmental psychology.

Application: Resisting Environmental Psychology

31:22 Our whole society has been brainwashed by environmental psychology that says this. Man is what he is because of the products of his environmental pressures. And if you see a lopsided humanity, a specimen of humanity, it's because there have been uneven pressures placed upon him, by his environment.

31:44 And so a man who in cold blood sexually abuses and slays eight nurses, what do they want to do to him? Everybody crying out. Well, let's find out the psychological pressures that were put to bear upon the man that correcting them we should clear society of all the problems of such crimes. I heard a Ph.D.

32:08 saying that over W.O.R. pleading that this man despaired and be made a case study so that the word of God says that those who take man's life shall have his own life taken meant nothing to this man.

32:21 For you see, he did not look upon this act as the outcropping of depraved nature. Out of the heart, Christ said, proceed murders. They say no. Out of the environment, proceed murders.

32:35 Who's right? Both can't be right.

32:40 God's right. Our society's in a mess because man won't acknowledge the wisdom of God. I heard something interesting the other night over W.O.R.

32:48 as well. Driving back from speaking, I think it was at that meeting somewhere.

32:56 I don't dare say where it was, but it was somewhere. I can't remember. And I had the radio on and they were interviewing some outstanding criminologists. Did I mention this last week?

33:07 No, I mentioned it up at the baccalaureate. I didn't mention it here. And it was interesting. This man is one of the head men out of the University of California in the field of criminology.

33:17 Now they give Ph.D. degrees out there in different aspects of criminology. And he said frankly, he was talking with Joe Franklin, I believe, at that interview program from 9, 15 to 10, somewhere around there.

33:28 And he said frankly, he said, we don't understand this, where we've been clearing up the pockets of poverty in the ghettos, where we should see a corresponding decline of vicious crimes. He says, frankly, we're battled.

33:45 Our accomplishments have not produced what we had hoped they would produce. And we don't know the answer. And oh, how I wish somehow I could talk into the 16th speaker in the car and let it come out in the radio station. Felt like saying, oh, dear man, God's told you the answer.

34:03 For from within, out of the heart of man. But you see, they've been brainwashed by environmental psychology, which says your environment produces this. No, it doesn't. It simply may be the little pressure to help get it out quicker.

34:21 Maybe the catalyst to spring loose the reaction.

34:25 You light a match to dynamite, it'll blow. The match simply becomes the catalyst to start the reaction. Not the match that blows. Not the match that's the cause of the explosion.

34:38 It's the dynamite that's the cause. The match simply was the occasion of setting up that reaction. And so there is in us all this potential of evil. Now, certain environmental pressures may be the match to cause the explosion.

34:51 But the dynamite was there in your breast and in mine. That's what I'm driving at. And you parents, listen, your kids are brainwashed by environmental psychology in their school, in the public school system. They're brainwashed by it.

35:06 The whole philosophy of all that touches the area of sociology and psychology is all environmental psychology. And they're brainwashed by it. Maybe this is why we don't see much deep conviction amongst our own young people. How can you feel convicted of sin?

35:22 When you're told from the time you're up, well, this part of society is responsible for this, and this situation responsible for that. How can you feel any personal guilt? How can you?

35:36 How can these kids feel personal guilt who flaunt the moral law of God when they've been told society has let you down? So blame society. Some of you know it's society. Curse society.

35:48 Curse the bomb. Curse Vietnam. Curse the president. Don't curse me.

35:53 I'm just a victim. See? That's the mood. That's the mood of our generation, dear ones.

35:57 That's the generation in which we're called to bear witness.

36:01 And I, for one, am determined by the grace of God to stand in the midst of this generation and say, not environmental psychology, but moral pollution by original sin. That's the fountain out of which it all falls.

Application: Rejecting the 'Age of Accountability' Concept

36:18 Oh, may we be instructed from the text, first of all, to know ourselves, to know the nature of true confession, and to be kept from the brainwashing influences of environmental psychology. And in the fourth place, let's be instructed. It will not fall into the air of this business of age of accountability. I want to read something to you tonight that shocked me.

36:44 It's called Child Evangelism is taught in the Word of God by one of the greatest leaders in children's work, and he's giving what he feels is the biblical basis of evangelizing children. Listen. A little child is humble, teachable, and trustful, and each of these characteristics is essential to coming to God as lost sinners and accepting salvation by grace, a free gift. Adults, now get this, adults or adults, whichever way you prefer, have lost these essentials, these essentials, that's humility, teachableness, and trustfulness, and only through the agony of repentance and by the grace of God can they acquire

37:28 them since little children already possess these things. Christ is teaching it's easier for a child to come to Christ than an adult.

37:41 Let me ask you parents something. Do you find your children are naturally humble, teachable?

37:51 I began to wonder, well, Lord, have I got some extra bad demons? Children! That's a general statement. Children!

38:04 A little child is humble, teachable, trustful.

38:11 Adults, you see, they're depraved, but not little children. Beloved, that lies at the root of a great bulk of the work being done amongst children in our day, and I never thought I'd see the day when I would stand in the pulpit and have to expose it, but I feel in the interest of truth, I must. That's why the whole philosophy is get them to raise their little paddy while they're young.

38:34 Because if you get them to raise their little paddy while they're still humble and teachable, you see, and trust full, before sin somehow enters, and the grace of God can only make them humble. Oh, no, my only hope for my dear children is the grace of God from the moment they breathe their first air, because they were conceived in sin, and I've passed on to them that same potential for wickedness that lies in my own breast, and nothing humbles me more as a parent. If you go in and look at my children, they look most like angels when they're sleeping. Don't you wonder sometimes, parents, how in the world you ever could spank them and get angry with them?

39:18 You see them laying in there sleeping, and you say, well, boy, did I really see it right? Could that thing have really acted that way? They just look so calm and peaceful, and they just look like one little bundle of honey and goo and sweetness.

39:32 Don't they? Do you have that experience as a parent when you see them sleeping there? Some of you teenagers, you've outgrown that. Your parents, they know better now.

39:41 I'm talking about when they're down here.

39:46 Seriously, then I realize within that sweet little bundle of resting flesh is all the potential for evil that's within my own heart.

40:01 Let's not talk about an age of accountability, a phrase that I don't like because it's unscriptural, non-scriptural, and then it conveys a concept that is downright unscriptural. That's the instruction I hope we receive from the text. And then briefly, the text should not only be for our instruction but for our humiliation. Till we see our sin in the fountain of the heart, we shall never truly mourn over it in the life and in the conversation.

Application: Humiliation and Holy Concern

40:31 It's a humbling thing to acknowledge as it was for David that what he did out here as a 50-year-old man with all the experience and privilege and knowledge of God behind him, what he did here was rooted in what he became back there when conceived in his mother's womb. It's a humbling thing, isn't it? Isn't it humbling? Do you find it so?

40:56 To acknowledge that what you've done is the fruit of what you are. Do you find it hard to be humble? Anybody here find it natural to be humble? We're so foolish, we're getting bald, we'll strut over the fact that we've got three more hairs than the next guy who's shining like a cue ball.

41:14 That's how we are, isn't it? It's the way the human heart is. You'll find anything as a foothold for pride. If you want something to keep you humble, then just remind yourself, pray Psalm 51 periodically, and acknowledge that all that you can claim that is yours by nature is sin.

41:33 Anything else is the gift of God's grace, common or special. Your sin is the only thing that you can lay claim to as being your original production. Humbling thought. And then, for the last place, let the text not only instruct us, let it not only be the means of humiliation, let it be the means of creating holy concern.

41:58 What would you think of a man who carried in his arms gasoline-soaked rags and who deliberately walked by a situation where there were open fires? You'd say that man was a fool. He had to carry gasoline-soaked rags and let him go as far away as possible from that which might ignite the rags and turn him into a burning torch. You and I carry within us, even though we may be regenerate, we carry the remains of corruption within us.

42:28 Paul said in Romans 7, there is this other law in my members that's like a veritable pile of soap rags. Rags soaked with gasoline and sin and temptation are like lighted fires.

42:41 I see people playing and flaunting with situations of temptation. I generally say to myself, that man doesn't know his heart. He wouldn't get so near the flame for fear he might see it ignite into a burning rage and fire. David learned the hard way that when he laid the soap rags of his potential sin out before the fire of a situation to provoke lust, he learned that people call you hypersensitive.

43:15 I've been called that ever since I've been a Christian. I don't care what they call me.

43:20 I'm not going to take the gasoline soap rags of my depraved nature and put it out before every potential fire to ignite it. Let one call us puritanical. Call one hypersensitive. That's all right.

43:36 Know what it is to avoid sin and be able by the grace of God to look up into his face and say thank you Lord for your overcoming grace. It doesn't matter what people think. You know the areas where the rags, those soap rags of your depraved nature are most susceptible to fire. Avoid them.

43:55 That's why the scripture says watch and pray that you enter not into temptation. Not enough to pray. Be watchful. If you're particular temptation is well you know what it is.

44:07 What is it? Let your conscience do its work right now. What is your particular proneness to evil?

44:16 What are those occasions which most normally provoke you to fall in that area? Then avoid them. Watch as well as pray.

44:27 You and I believe and enter into the spirit of Psalm 51 5. It will create that concern that we shall seek to avoid the occasions of sin. It will not only create a concern in us, it will create a deep concern for our children. Oh dear parents, labor to instill in your children by instruction and prayer a holy dread of their potential for evil.

44:55 That's one of your great responsibilities as a parent.

45:00 Not to stroke their fuzzy little head and say you're a good boy.

45:06 But to sit down with earnestness and love and say daddy loves you anyway and God has set his son before you but you've got a wicked heart. Tell him the truth.

45:24 Lest they find to their shame how wicked their hearts really are.

45:31 That's one of the heartbreaks of the ministry to sit down with people who look you in the face with a stark shocked look and say I didn't believe I could do this. No, that's right you didn't because you were living in a fool's paradise. You never got a sight and glimpse of your heart that made you walk carefully. Parent, you may have your children come back from bed with dad.

45:55 Mom, I just didn't believe I could do this. Maybe the reason will be partly your fault and mine for failing to seek to instill in them by the grace of God an awareness of the depravity of human nature.

46:10 David's confession involved not only an acknowledgement of the presence of sin, an acknowledgement of the nature of sin, but an honest acknowledgement of the source of sin. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive. May God grant that our confession from hence forth shall be more scriptural, that our understanding of the ways of God and the ways of men and the ways of our own society will be more scriptural that will allow the word of God to purge our minds from the brainwashing influences of modern psychology and philosophy and that we shall by the grace of God personally and then in our witness to others seek to

46:55 be true to the biblical doctrine set forth in this text of scripture and by the grace of God we shall never bemoan the fact that we had too great a sight of our sin we shall praise him that he gave us such a sight as drove us to him for in the light not only of what I've done but what I am what hope is there but the mercy of God and blessed be God his mercy takes sinners who not only have done bad things but who are bad and his mercy encompasses the breadth of human need and beyond blessed be God for such mercy I trust you're under the canopy of that mercy tonight if not flee to Christ who is the very

47:40 expression of that mercy and who has promised all who come unto him he will graciously receive let us pray