Make Me to Hear Joy and Gladness

The Necessity of Scriptural Guidance for Prayer and Confession

0:03 As we have seen in past nights, it's a principle taught in the Word of God that God desires that every department of the life of His children be brought under the directive influence of the Word of God. Even our prayers and our confession must be shaped and molded by the Scriptures. I think if we were to make a survey, if you'd ask the average Christian, do you believe God wants your business life to be governed by the Word of God, he'd say yes. Do you believe God wants your thought life to be governed by the principles of the Word of God, he would say yes.

0:40 And you could ask almost every area of life, but it's sort of a common assumption that when it comes to praying and it comes to confessing our sins, you just do what comes naturally. I would suggest to you that this is not a scriptural pattern for our Lord as far as the subject of prayer is concerned. He said, when ye pray, say, or after this manner, pray ye. His disciples had sense enough to acknowledge that.

1:03 Doing what comes naturally wasn't enough, so they said, Lord, teach us to pray. And no little part of true prayer is confession. So if we need to be taught to pray in general, it's right to conclude that we need to be taught how to confess our sins in particular. And it's with that end in view that God has given to us the penitential psalms particularly, not that we might admire the deep penitence of the psalmist, the deep penitence of the psalmist.

1:33 But that we, by the grace of God, might enter into his penitent spirit and express our penitence in the very thought concept given to us by the Holy Spirit. And so I remind you, as I do each night, that we are not studying the 51st psalm simply to admire the beautiful inner structure of the psalm, or to stand back amazed at the thoroughness of David's repentance. We could do all of that and be as barren and dry and lifeless. As a stock or a stone.

Review of David's Confession and Transition to Psalm 51:8

2:05 But we're studying this psalm, I trust, with an end in view that as we are conscious of sin, when God sends his nations to us, we will be able to enter the closet of prayer and open our Bibles to the 51st psalm and pray this very psalm to our God, not only with the mouth and the lips, but with the spirit and with the understanding. We've seen that the only refuge of the convicted sinner is the mercy and loving kindness of God. We've considered the essential elements involved in true confession, acknowledging the fact of sin, verse 3, acknowledging the nature of sin, verse 4, acknowledging the source of sin, verse 5, and then in verse 6 you have this transition verse in which David acknowledges that God wants the effects of his grace to go as deep as the effects of sin, as he was shapen in iniquity, and sin is a part of the very fibrous of his constitution. So he acknowledges that God wants the effects of his grace to go as deep as the effects of sin, and he acknowledges that God desires truth in the inward parts and that his grace will go as deep as the malady of sin. Then last week we considered verse 7 in which David makes a recapitulation. He goes back over ground that he's already covered, but just like the man who's mowing his lawn and he's gone over one part, he may go over it again, but simply to mow it a little more thoroughly.

3:27 Perhaps if you go over this direction, there are certain bumps and ridges that will leave some grass higher than others, so you'll go back over this direction to make sure you get all the little ends that are sticking up. Well, that's what David did. His first confession of his sin was more general as far as cleansing is concerned, and so now he goes back over that ground and prays not only that he shall be purged and cleansed, but purged by the appointed means. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.

3:56 Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. This brings us to our consideration tonight of verse 7. 8. Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.

Meaning of 'Make Me to Hear Joy and Gladness'

4:13 To think our way through the text, I wanted first of all to consider briefly the meaning of the words themselves. When David said, make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice, he meant something by those words, and we will not enter into the spirit of his prayer unless we first of all enter into the spirit of his prayer. We will not enter into the meaning of the words of his prayer. Thoughts are conveyed by words and understood as we understand those words.

4:42 So briefly we shall look at the words, and then we shall consider some of the great principles that are found in those words. Now notice what he says. Make me to hear joy and gladness. Picture a man shut up in a cage in a dark dungeon, and all day long, through the dungeon's walls and through the little opening, the wired or barred opening, there come the dull, doleful tones of a funeral dirge from morning till night.

5:17 Waking he hears the dull funeral dirge in minor key. Sleeping he goes off to sleep to the sound of it throughout all the hours of the day, until finally in desperation he feels this is going to drive him insane. He cries. He cries.

5:32 He cries. He cries. He cries. He cries out to the keeper of his cell or his prison.

5:35 Please, please, allow some tones of joyful music to light upon my ears. That's the picture here. David has been hearing the terrible dirge, the doleful sound of the minor key that is always the music of a convicted soul. And now in his desperation before God, he cries out and says, Oh, God, let my ears hear another tune, play another tune that my ears, my ears may hear that tune.

6:05 Make me to hear. And what is that tune that he wants to hear? Joy and gladness. I've tried to see if there was any basic distinction in these two words, and they are used more or less synonymously in the scripture, and I believe here in David's prayer, there is no great hidden meaning in the difference between joy and gladness, but he's using them as synonyms, and speaking of those delightful emotions that are best, felt, than better felt than described.

6:35 I can't describe or give a technical definition of joy and gladness, but I know when I've got it, and I know when I haven't. It's better felt than felt. And there are a lot of things in the realm of true experimental Christianity that are better felt than felt. And you know what joy and gladness are, and you know what they aren't.

6:54 And when David prayed, make me to hear a new tune, the tune that he wanted to hear was that tune of joy, and that tune. The tune of gladness. Joy, that quality, that bright, exhilarating quality that is called in Galatians 5.22, one of the ninefold fruit of the Spirit, that which is called in Romans 14.17, one of the essential elements of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. It's made one of the essential elements of the kingdom of God. It's that which we read, in the Old Testament, is our strength.

7:35 The joy of the Lord is thy strength. That pure emotion that makes difficult tasks easy, that makes suffering a delight, that makes forbearing under difficult trials a comparatively easy thing, but that bright emotion without which all human delight becomes sour, and all pure joys are looked upon with a jaundiced eye and with an unresponsive heart. This is what David is praying, that he may once again hear. Make me to hear a new tune.

Meaning of 'The Bones Which Thou Hast Broken May Rejoice'

8:08 For what purpose? That the bones that thou hast broken may rejoice. Now, of course, this is poetic language again. And hermeneutics, which is the science of interpretation, which every Christian ought to have, you ought to have a science of interpretation that you learn from the Bible itself, is essential to understanding the Scriptures.

8:29 Now, here is a figure of speech. Did David's bones...

8:33 Did his bones actually get crushed? Those physical bones, those formations of calcium and all the other things that held together his body and formed the structural element of his body, did God actually come and crush them with a hammer? Well, of course not. We know that he's using poetic language because he says that the bones that thou hast broken may rejoice.

8:53 When did your bones ever sing? You'd not only be a case for the doctor, you'd be a case for a psychiatrist if you told someone you woke up in the morning and your bones were singing. Your bones may ache when you get arthritis and bursitis and the rest, but they don't sing. They may creak a little bit, but they never sing.

9:10 So we have poetic language. And when you have poetic language, you must interpret it as poetic language. So when anyone comes to you and says, do you take the Bible literally? You ask them, first of all, what do you mean?

9:22 If you mean when I find a figure of speech, do I interpret it as a figure? Fine. And whatever the figure symbolizes, I believe it. When I find poetic language, I interpret it as poetic language.

9:32 Fine. Don't let them hang you up. Oh, yeah, I believe the Bible literally. Then they'll take you to a verse like this and say, look, you mean God's actually the kind of God who would come and break one after another the bones of a Christian?

9:42 You say you take the Bible literally. Don't try...

9:44 This isn't how people try to hang you up. Well, don't let them do that. Here's poetic language. What is David saying?

9:51 Well, get the picture. The word here is a strong word. That the bones that thou hast utterly collapsed or crushed...

9:59 Now, have you ever had one bone crushed?

10:02 Have you ever had one bone even throbbed? Good and hard, and you know the ache when bones ache. Some of you have gone into the water, perhaps early in the spring. I was brought up in Long Island Sound, and I can remember trying to go in by my birthday on April 7th, and I can remember going just to say I'd been in the water and stand there until every bone in my foot just ached.

10:22 Terrible when your bones ache. You know what it is that your bones ache? It's an excruciating kind of pain, a pain that from within seems to go out to every nerve and fiber to the extremity of the flesh. Now, David says, O God, the state of my soul is like unto a man who's had every bone in his body crushed, excruciating, intense pain and discomfort.

10:47 But, O God, if you will but play a new tune upon my ears, if you will but speak a word of forgiveness and pardon, if you will make me to hear joy and gladness, the transformation will be just as great as a man who's been lying in agony and intense, excruciating pain, every bone in his body broken, and he's instantly healed. Every bone is mended and he stands up. Think of the contrast. From excruciating pain to normalcy of health again.

11:17 Now, David says, Lord, if you'll but speak the word of joy and gladness, that will be my experience. It'll be like unto a man whose bones have been crushed, and now those bones are healed again. Let me quote from the treasury of David, which has afforded me some little gems of thought from time to time in this study, and this one was a great blessing to me, and I want to read it to you. On this very phrase, what did David mean that the bones that thou hast broken may rejoice?

11:50 He was like a poor wretch whose bones were crushed, crushed by no ordinary means but by omnipotence itself. He groaned under no mere flesh wounds. His firmest and yet tenderest power, his powers were broken in pieces all asunder. His manhood had become a dislocated, mangled, quivering sensibility.

12:12 Yet, if he who crushed would cure, every wound would become a new mouth for song. Isn't that beautiful? Every wound would become a new mouth for song. Every bone quivering before with agony would become equally sensible of intense delight.

12:29 The figure is bold and so is the supplicant. He is requesting a great thing. He seeks joy for a sinful heart, music for crushed bones, preposterous prayer anywhere but at the throne of God, preposterous there most of all, but for the cross where the Lord Jesus bore our sins in his own body on the tree. A penitent need not ask to be an hired servant or settle down in despairing content with perpetual mourning.

12:57 He may ask for gladness and he shall have it. For if when prodigals return the father is glad and the neighbors enfranchised, the sons rejoice and are merry with music and dancing, what need can there be that the restored one himself should be wrecked? Isn't that beautiful? If you have any poetic sensibility, you appreciate those words of Charles Spurgeon.

Expository Preaching and Its Application

13:19 Every bone becomes a mouth for praise. This is David's petition. Now, I trust then, if you were asked to summarize what did David mean when he prayed, make me to hear joy and gladness that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice, you'd be able to say, this is a plea for a God-given restoration of joy and gladness that inner pain may give way to inner delight and gladness. Now, so much for the meaning of the words themselves.

13:47 What are the implications and lessons for us who sit before these words tonight? And may I say by way of parenthesis to you young men preparing for the ministry,

13:59 this, and by no means am I setting myself up as an example, but at least I am trying in principle to attain this. This is expository preaching. There's a curse in the evangelical church today. Among others, there is one curse which has the, as it, or is the result of this false idea that expository preaching is taking people through the Bible saying this verse means this, and this one means this, and this one means this, until people know what's in the Bible.

14:26 That is not expository preaching.

14:30 Expository preaching is taking people through the Bible saying this verse says this, and it means this, and in the light of what it says and means here, this is what it says to you there.

14:45 Get the difference?

14:47 And if you stop short of that, you haven't truly expounded the word of God. For the scripture says, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for knowledge. No. For doctrine, understanding the principle.

15:01 For correction, laying the truth. The Greek word in one of those places is mastigas, whipping. Whipping. Ever feel like you get, whipped around here?

15:10 Well, that's what God gave his word for.

15:14 For correction. For instruction in how to live right. That the man of God may have a head full of facts? No.

15:21 But that the man of God may be mature, truly furnished unto all good answers in a Bible quiz? No. Unto all good works. And so I say out of a heart of concern, and I had to stick in this little parenthesis, have about a half a dozen of you contemplating the ministry, never forget that.

15:36 You get your tools of Greek and Hebrew, and you can find out what it says. You haven't preached, but you've said, now in the light of what it says, this is what it says to you right there. And this is what it ought to mean to you. And may God give a return to this kind of ministry in his church.

Lesson 1: Holiness is the Root of Happiness

15:50 Well then, let's make an attempt to do that, shall we? What is the first lesson that God would have for us in these words, make me to hear joy and gladness? Well, the first lesson, I believe, is this. David saw the proper relationship between happiness and holiness.

16:09 And this text brings it out. You will notice in the first seven verses, there isn't one word about joy, peace, happiness. Not a word. Everything in the first seven verses has to do with sin, repentance, cleansing, restoration.

16:27 The whole involvement of the first seven verses is repentance and acknowledgement of the guilt of sin. Praying for removal of the guilt of sin. Praying for restoration to the favor of God. Praying for renewal.

16:42 Praying for renewal of heavenly wisdom. Praying for cleansing from personal defilement. Not one word about happiness, joy, peace, or blessing. Not a word.

16:52 Why? Because David saw the relationship between happiness and holiness, namely, that holiness is the root and the soil out of which happiness grows. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were perfectly happy because? Because they were perfectly holy.

17:14 As our little children's catechism says, in what condition did God make Adam and Eve? And the answer, God made them what? Holy and happy. What happened to Adam and Eve after they sinned?

17:26 Instead of being holy and happy, still quoting from the introduction to the Shorter Catechism, they became miserable and sinful. You see, their happiness was the fruit of their holiness. When they were in right relationship to God and to His Holy Spirit, holy requirements, then they knew all the joy and gladness that the creature could contain as a creature. But when they sinned, misery came into place.

17:52 But, like the other appetites that human beings have, both what I would call appetites of the soul as well as the body, the appetite for happiness did not die when man died spiritually. When Adam and Eve sinned, they did not lose their physical appetite. They could still eat food. They did not lose their other legitimacy.

18:11 They did not lose their ultimate physical appetite and drive. Nor did they lose certain of the appetites of the soul, the desire for authority and creativity and aesthetic appreciation. Nor did they lose their desire for happiness. But what man did lose was the proper relationship between happiness and holiness.

18:32 And so now the whole human race is on a crazed pursuit for what? Happiness! Happiness! Happiness!

18:39 But they do not want anything. They do not want anything to do with the root and soil out of which happiness grows, namely, a right relationship to God and to His Holy Law. If you were to go down Main Street tonight and say, I have a sure formula for happiness, brother, they'll fall in behind you like the rats behind the Pied Piper. Everybody wants to be happy.

19:02 That's the whole pitch of our advertising world today. Happiness in one form or another, either promised to us in terms of sensual pleasure, in terms of happiness, or in terms of position, station, popularity, some way. If you go down the road tonight and say, I can tell you how you can be holy, how you can be right with God and His Holy Law, and people look at you like you're some kind of a...

19:25 You see, David recognized this basic principle that happiness and holiness were inseparably related and that holiness was the root and soil out of which happiness grew, so he never dared even pray for the restoration of joy and happiness until he dealt thoroughly with the issues, of his sin. Have mercy upon me, O God. Blot out, cleanse me, purge me, wash me. This is his prayer.

19:52 Then and only then does his name make me to hear joy and gladness.

19:57 And as in other areas, the ways of the flesh, unregenerate flesh, do not all leave us at the threshold of Christian experience. And that same itch to have happiness without holiness carries on with us into the Christian life, and to our shame, it dominates, much of the motif and climate of the Evangelical Church today, so that our pitch, especially in our youth ministries, is what? Do you want life with a capital L? Do you want to be happy?

20:29 Come to Jesus. No. He didn't come primarily to make you happy. He came to deal with the problem that makes you unhappy.

20:38 Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He'll save His people from their sin and dealing with the root. Blessed be God. Then the fruits come, as one of what we call in our very labor-relationship-conscious age, the strange renaissance.

20:55 David saw it. So he never mentions happiness and joy until he deals with his sin. For he knew that the ground of his sadness was sin, that which caused this terrible, futile urge to be heard in his ears day and night until in agony of soul he could stand it no longer was his sin. So he doesn't skirt the issue of sin.

21:17 He's wanting to have the fruit of holiness without the root. He deals with the root, and then the fruit will follow. Or Galatians 5.22 says, as I mentioned earlier, that the fruit of the Spirit is joy, and if the Spirit is quenched and breathed in an area of sanctification, I cannot know his ministry of imparting joy and peace.

21:36 You see, you can't pick and choose the ministries and work of the Holy Spirit like you pick and choose food in the supermarket. I mean, nobody's going to jump on you or get angry with you for bypassing candles. You can't pick and choose a candle soup and choosing Lipton. You're free to do that.

21:51 And we get the idea that we can sort of shop around for the blessings and ministries of the Spirit. Well, I'd like the Spirit to joy. Oh, I don't care too much for his sanctifying influence right now. I've got some areas that I'd like to just forget that.

22:05 But I sure would like his joy, and I'd like a little bit of his guidance. Man, I don't want to get hung up with the wrong woman or man for the rest of my life, so I sure would like the Spirit to guide me about my life's partner and my life's occupation. Yes, but what about your darling bosom's sin? Oh, let's not talk about that yet.

22:22 Let's talk about it. See, you can't pick and choose the ministries of the Spirit. And David learned that. And having quenched and grieved the Spirit with his sin, he lost his joy as a byproduct.

22:33 And joy and gladness would never come again until he went to the point at which the ministry of the Spirit in his life was grieved and quenched. And when he dealt with it there, then all the other springs of the Spirit's ministry would be opened up again, as we'll see in the later part. Now, may I ask you a very personal question? Have you ever been guilty of this?

22:54 Wanting God to get you over the hump of your misery and give you back your joy, but you haven't gone to the root of the thing that's robbed you of your joy? You ever been guilty of that? Hmm? Maybe you're guilty of it right now.

23:12 Nothing more pathetic than to see a carnal group of possessing Christians trying to whip up some joy while they bypass the issues of sin and evil. See, I've had people tell me, all over the country, Oh, if you bear down on sin and probe the consciences of God's people, you'll make the people of God a downcast, moral, sad bunch. It isn't true! The happiest group of people I've ever been with are the people who are dealing most closely with their sins, because they have a joy that David's talking about here.

23:53 Well, I must carry on to the second principle that I see in the text that is before us tonight. His first petition is not to say, not for happiness but holiness, and that being dealt with, he then prays for a restoration of happiness. Go thou and do likewise. Secondly, David acknowledges in his prayer that only God can bring this joy and this happiness, this gladness that he so desperately needs.

Lesson 2: Only God Can Restore Joy

24:17 These words have fascinated me in my study. Make me to hear joy and gladness. And I've asked myself the question, well, was the fault of David's fear? Was it as though God was speaking words?

24:30 Was it words of joy and happiness? And David says, My ears have become insensitive. Lord, do something with my spiritual ears so that I'll be able to hear? Or is he saying, Lord, my ears are a tent and open?

24:43 Oh, God, just speak a word of mercy. Speak a word of pardon, as you spoke through Nathan that word of conviction that found its way to the bull's-eye in my heart when he said to me, Thou art the man, Lord. You spoke words that began the funeral service. Oh, God, with the same authority, with the same penetration, with the same accuracy, Lord, send a word of mercy to my heart.

25:10 I think it's the latter. I think it's the latter. You see, David is recognizing a principle that I trust we recognize, that though our sin can forfeit the blessing of God, there's nothing we can do to get it back. Only God can give it to us.

25:28 Let me illustrate. I have the power tonight, humanly speaking, the physical power, to cut off my right hand. If I were to take a nice heavy axe or cleaver and come down, I have the power to cut off my hand. But you see, I don't have the power to put it back on me.

25:45 I have the power to sever it from me, but I don't have the power to put it back on me. Medical science has experimented a couple of times with severed limbs and been half-successful. The last report I read of that man, a young boy who lost his arm was that he was getting some nerve sensation back from the rest. But you see, it takes, it takes an outside power, either trained in that particular thing or a supernatural intervention of God.

26:09 I have the power to take my scissors and go out to the garden and clip off a bud and put it in the bud base or hog. But you see, I don't have the power after a day to say, well, you know, I'd like to change that, but I'd still like that to adorn the garden and go out and stick it back on again and have it have life. I don't have that power. I can sever it, but I can't join it to that again.

26:29 I may take a man's life, but I can't give life back to him. That's one of the saddest tragedies of sin. By our sin, we can forfeit every blessing, but by nothing within us can we bring back one small blessing of God. Man by his sin is forfeiting paradise, but man has no power to open his doors again to God.

26:56 Man by his sin is forfeiting the knowledge of God, but man by himself has no ability to penetrate and to bring down that knowledge to himself. David says in essence in this prayer, O God, I knew what it was to walk in joy and gladness. I'm not sure if it's one of the Davidic psalms that says, Thou hast put gladness in our hearts more than they who have their new wine. See, a man with new wine is rejoicing.

27:27 David said, God, you put a joy in my heart that makes that look like kid stuff. This is the psalmist who wrote and said, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. The one who got so blessed one time he danced a jig in front of the ark. And his wife said, hmm, Pentecostalism.

27:47 Yes, that's what she said. Oh, enthusiasm! Oh, no it wasn't. You know, but let's not relegate all expressions of religious joy to some religious denomination.

27:59 Maybe we had a little measure of the joy that some people have. We might experience a little of that. Wouldn't hurt us. Would it, does it?

28:07 No, sir. You see, David knew that joy. A joy that made him dance before the ark. He said, Lord, that's what I had.

28:15 But now, my sin has caused me to forfeit that joy. But, oh, God, I don't have the power to go out and bring it back. You must make me to hear joy and gladness. Notice verse 12.

28:26 He uses the very word restore. Lord, You must restore it to me. I lost it, but I cannot find it. I forfeited it, but I cannot regain it.

28:34 Oh, Lord. Not verse 12. It's verse, yes, verse 12. Restore to me the joy.

28:40 The joy of Thy salvation. What a tremendous principle to recognize as God's children, that we may quench and grieve the Spirit and lose our joy, but we cannot gain it back by going out and singing a few peppy choruses, by going to a couple of good lively meetings, a lot of special numbers, sound nice, make you feel good and get it back again. You may get a surface substitute kind of religious giddiness, but it won't be the joy of the Lord. Only one way to get it back.

29:10 That's to realize, where you lost it and deal with the thing that caused you to lose it and then throw yourself upon the mercy of God like David did and said, Oh God, make me to hear it once again. And continue to hang upon His mercy until God speaks joy and peace to the heart. He may allow us to go on in heaviness for a time. And I'm going to say some things now that some of you won't understand, but there's some of you that need to hear them because you will understand.

29:39 And as a pastor, I must seek to give a portion, to each in season. When you've acknowledged the sin that has caused you to lose your joy and you've prayed as best you know through the first seven verses as honestly as you know, and you've laid the thing bare before God and you've pled now, make me to hear joy and gladness. There are times when God doesn't allow you to hear that joy and gladness instantaneously. He allows you to go on in your heaviness for a time.

30:06 Some of the Psalms are written during those periods when the psalmist has searched his own heart. He says before him, Lord God, I've washed my hands in innocency. As best I know, all is well. But Lord, how long dost thou hide thy faith?

30:20 God has wise purposes for it then. May I mention just one or two quickly that I hope will be of encouragement to some of you? It's one of his ways to discipline us so that we won't return so quickly to that folly again. You see, the first time my son lied, and he's not here tonight so I can say it, the first time that I knew he lied, I felt there had to be a punishment commensurate with the nature of that kind of a sin.

30:46 And though he'd received a number of spankings with my hand on his backside, he'd never received the belt. After talking with him and showing him from the Scriptures what God says about liars, that liars have their part in the lake of fire, that God loves truth, and the lip of truth he would establish forever, and how God hated lying, and only those that speak truth in the heart will ascend to his holy hill, I said, Son, Daddy's got to make you remember the terribleness of the sin of lying. And if I spank you with my hand, it would be like the punishment you've gotten from other things and you wouldn't remember as well. Daddy's going to spank you with the belt for the first time.

31:23 And you say, Cruel? No. My son never forgot that. He felt the smart of it for many hours.

31:37 And feeling the smart of it constantly reminded him of the nature of the sin that brought the smart upon him and made him a little less quick to go back to that sin. That's what God does with his children. Whom the Lord loves, he chastens and scourges every son whom he receives. And you see, his chastening at times is apportioned in such a way that we'll feel the sting of it for a while that we won't be so quick to go back to it again.

32:09 And when you've fallen into a type of sin that has made you lose your joy and you've heard the funeral dirge and you've confessed it and you've cried to God to hear joy and gladness, but a period of hours or days goes by and there's no joy and gladness, oh, you feel the sting of it and all you can do is, as it were, hang your soul upon the mercy of God praying that you shall yet know the joy and gladness of God. And oh, when it comes, how much more you appreciate it. That's the second reason why God withholds blessings to give us at times a greater appreciation of those blessings. For blessings waited for and longed for and earnestly prayed for are blessings many times received with much greater gratitude than blessings that have come quickly, blessings that have come perhaps with but one asking. So God may allow us to go on in heaviness for a time, but child of God like David, you just stay on verse 8 till you can get on to verse 9. Just stay with it because he's promised, if with all your heart you seek me, you shall find me. Huh?

33:18 Keep on asking in the original and it shall be given you. Keep on seeking and ye shall find. Keep on knocking and it shall be opened unto you. Now if there were no things for which we had to keep on asking, seeking and knocking, then that verse is utterly meaningless.

33:33 That's to encourage us to keep on asking. Now the temptation will be to go out and start playing your own tune. But David didn't say, Lord, help me to play my own tune of gladness. He said, God, you play the tune, just help me to hear it.

33:47 See the difference? Now you can get up and by a cute little syllogism, I've asked God to forgive me. He's promised if we confess, then he has. Therefore, I'm going to be happy.

33:58 And so we go around and everybody knows that we're playing our own tune. But if you'll stick with it and continue before God until God is pleased to send the breath of his joy into your heart once again, that joy will be a joy that comes not by an external dream, but that flows up from within the heart of a man who's embracing with gladness and gratitude a long awaited blessing from the living God. Actually, I've been in meetings where the song leader stood up and said, now everybody take your two fingers, put it in the side of your mouth, and I'll pull it up. What a travesty on Christianity.

Lesson 3: God Brings Misery Through Chastening

34:34 What a travesty. But oh, when God grants his joy. David acknowledged that only God could bring it, and so he seeks God for it. Third principle in our text, David recognizes in this prayer that God has brought him into this miserable state.

34:45 Make me do this. Make me do this. Make me do this. Make me do this.

34:50 Make me do this. Make me do this. Make me do this. Make me do this.

34:54 Make me do this. Make me do this. Make me do this. Make me do this.

34:58 Make me do this. Make me do this. Make me do this. Make me to hear joy and gladness that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.

35:03 You mean God brought David into this state? He seemed to think so. He didn't say that the bones which have been broken, leaving it in some doubt as to who did the breaking. He said, Lord, make me to hear joy that the bones which thou, the living God, hast broken.

35:22 And this brings us back to the set of principles of the Hebrew chapter 12 and I want you to look at it first, for there is only he who finds joy in Thena. moment, I gave just a passing reference to one of the verses here. It's wonderful how some of us who have been here through the day can see everything tying together. In our catechetical instruction this morning on the subject of adoption, we considered one of the privileges of adoption is that we receive treatment in sons, inheritance and discipline. Hebrews 12 and verse 6, or verse 5, And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not, or regard not lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as sons. For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? The

36:22 writer of the Hebrews says, It's unthinkable that a father would have a son and not a son. God chasteneth. And if you're not a faithful disciplinarian, you're in this terms of biblical thinking, you're an unthinkable creature. If you're not a man and woman of principle enough to discipline consistently in love with firmness, with understanding. You don't love your child, you hate him. That's what the scripture says. The father that loves his child disciplines him. He who withholds the rod hates his son, encourages him to go on in his sin. And so he says, using the history of the Bible, He who withholds the rod hates his son, encourages him to go on in his sin. And so he says, using the history of the Bible, human parallel. What son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if ye be without chastisement whereof all are partakers, then are ye illegitimate children and not true sons. Furthermore, we've had fathers of our flesh who corrected us and we gave them reverence.

37:13 You say, Oh, if I discipline my children, I'll lose their affection. No, you've already lost it if you don't discipline them. You've lost respect and affection. The greater part of which in the child-parent relationship is respect. A child can learn to love, but a person who gives him firm, loving discipline because he respects that adult. And his love in great measure is built upon that respect. So he says, Our fathers corrected us, we gave them due reverence. And shall we not rather be in subject unto the Father of spirits and live? For they verily after a few days chastened us for a few days after their own pleasure.

37:51 But now notice, But he for our profit, that we might be partakers of happiness? No. That we might be partakers of holiness. Now no chastening for the present seems joyous but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness. Now what is some of the fruit? Joy? Peace? But you see, the chastening has as its goal holiness and as its ultimate result the fruits of righteousness, one of which is joy and gladness. And so David knows that this broken bone condition has been brought upon him by his God. Now notice, it would seem a contradiction, and the natural man can understand it. David is praying that God would give him joy, but he's praying to the very God that has crushed his bones. He sees that the joy-speaking God and the bone-crushing God are the same God. You got it? The bone-crushing

39:03 God. And the God who speaks joy and gladness to a penitent's heart. David had no problem worshiping God in what we might call the extreme of his activities. By nature, every human carnal mind will have a God that's all bone-crushing. Wrath and anger, distance and above us and beyond us, we cannot come near him. Or we'll concoct a God who's all joy-speaking, all love, all smiles, no frowns. The God of the bystander, the God of the bystander, the God of the bystander, the God of the bystander, the God of the bystander, the God of the bystander, the God of the bystander, the God of the bystander, the God of the bystander, the God of the bystander, is the bone-crushing God. The God who speaks joy and gladness. David acknowledges it in his prayer that God in love has broken his bones. For you see, if God were not to break the bones of his children who sin against him, if he were to allow us to enjoy the blessings of gladness and peace, even in a state of sinfulness, you see what he would be doing? He would be contributing to our destruction. Just as the Father, who still smiles when the child is disobedient to authority, shows no respect to parental rule, and the Father still smiles.

40:13 What's that Father doing? He's getting behind that child and pushing him in a course of self and eternal destruction. That's what he's doing. But the parent who sees the outcroppings of unregenerate rebellion and in love and firmness shows his crown. What's he doing?

40:35 He's checking that child from the course of self-destruction and turning him into the way of peace and blessing.

40:43 And that's what David said. David acknowledges that when he sinned and the joy bells ceased and the funeral dirge began to play and played on day and night, as he says in Psalm 32, day and night thy hand was heavy upon me, my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. I've cried out all my tears till I can cry no more. Did he look up and say, God, why did you bring me in this state? No. He's so confident that God broke his bones in love that he comes to this God and says, Now give me back joy and gladness. Is that the kind of God you worship? If you've got another kind of God, it's not the God of the Bible. It's not the God of the Bible. For whom he loves, he chastens and scourges every son. And if ye are without chastisement, then are ye illegitimate children and not sons. The principle mentioned in Deuteronomy 32, 39, I am the Lord, I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal. The principle of Hosea 6, 1, where the prophet says, Come, let us heal. Come, let us heal. Come, let us heal. Come, let us heal. Come, let us

41:45 return unto the Lord, for he has snitched on us and he will heal us. He has wounded us. He will bind us up. He has slain us. He will make alive. That's the principle of the scripture. I am told in reading, I have not been there to observe, that an oriental and eastern shepherd will take the little sheep that is persistently wayward to the little land, that will not learn how to fall in with the flock and stay with its mother, that he will take and deliver it. He will take and deliver it. He will take and deliver it. He break one of its limbs and then carry that lamb upon his arm while the bone sets. And forever after, that lamb never strays from the shepherd. You see, the shepherd loves the safety of the sheep enough to break its bones, lest it destroy itself and expose itself to the wild beasts and to yawning caverns and to rocky places that would take its life. Oh, beloved, thank God for the love of our Father, who break our bones. And just as I

42:50 wince when I see my children wince when I discipline them, only a sadist and a brute would have a gleam of satisfaction and a glint of delight in his eye when he's laying the strap upon the tender flesh of his own children. And as we wince when we see their tears, may I say it reverently, God winces at the tears of his children, at the groans when he must break his bones, at the groans when he must break his bones, at the groans when he must break his bones, at the groans when he must break his bones, at the groans when he must break their bones. But he is moved not by sentiment, but by principle. And so he disciplines them. He broke David's bones. He brought him into that state where inwardly he felt as a man whose bones were broken. And David acknowledges that God brings him to that state. Do you acknowledge this child of God? And do you thank God for it? Do you thank God for the

43:42 fact that he breaks your bones? He loves you enough to break your bones? Wouldn't it be terrible? Think back now. Think back of those times.

43:51 When sin had so deceived you, and had so welded itself to your sensual appetites and affections, that you'd lost all your spiritual bearings, and you were like a horse with a pit in its mouth running headlong to destruction, until God broke your bones, and he brought misery upon you, took away the sense of his presence. No peace, no joy, until in misery you cried out, Oh, God have mercy. And then the joy of forgiveness? Joy of restoration? Have you thanked God that he loved you enough to break your bones?

Lesson 4: The Christian is Both Most Sorrowful and Most Joyful

44:26 David, at least indirectly, acknowledges with thankfulness, not grudgingly, Thou hast broken my bones. And then the last principle that I see in the text is that the Christian is the most sorrowful and the most joyful man in all the world. Listen, right in one text, make me to hear joy, the bones that Thou hast broken. The Christian.

44:53 The Christian is the most sorrowful and the most joyful man in all the world. And he may be both at any end of any given day. Why? Well, for the simple reason that his sorrows and his joys are rooted in the most profound and weighty issues in the world. Here's a man that loses an investment of $100,000. He's sad. Why? That's a lot of money. A lot of money. Here's another man. He loses an investment of $10,000. He's sad, but not quite as sad as the other fellow.

45:24 That's not quite as much money. But the Christian is concerned with things that all the wealth in the world cannot buy. His soul. Eternity. Heaven. Hell. Sin. Forgiveness. Redemption.

45:41 The blood. And because these are eternal issues and the most weighty issues that the human mind can conceive of, therefore, joys and sorrows that flow out of the remationship of these issues will be depleted. The deepest joys and the deepest sorrows. If the joy of the man who wins $1,000 at the racetrack is 10 pounds, the man who wins 10,000 should be 100 pounds. The man who loses $1,000 in an investment, his grief ought to be only one-tenth of the man who loses 10,000. Now, project that upward to infinity. The Christian has at his greatest concern the relationship of the creature to the infinite God. His concern is about eternity when race tracks an investment.

46:25 And all that matters is being with him or in the lake of fire apart from him. Christian is concerned about these. Well, then it's no doubt, no surprise, that his joy is the greatest when he knows that the greatest issues at stake are settled and are right. He's right with his God. What greater joy can this bring? That's why the world can't understand when Christians in the time of the world can't understand. The minds of their great glory have been persecuted, stripped of all earthly possessions, kicked and treated like the dogs, outcasts. Why, they've had joy unspeakable and full of glory until men have gnashed with their teeth. We can't understand these fools. We

47:12 strip everything from them. We take their wives, their homes, their possessions, their children, and they rejoice. What's the matter with these people? Well, you see, their joy was rooted in the most vital issue of all. Likewise, the joy of the man who wins $1,000 at the battle is that of God in the flesh when he sees Jesus in the man's tears, feet of water, skin, and blood. Yet he dreams and dreams twice of his sorrows in the freedom that темples this world with every loss, all his compt seviory, mind and will. The choice to go up is to start to his joy. To his joy his pride. His joy. But if your life is so fraught with sin that you're willing to carry God in your arms to the death of this woman, faith, and then to die to the power of life, or if you will, death, no matter what, let there beдиah. Father God? Well, David's a beautiful picture of this principle, that the Christian is at the same time the most sorrowful and the most joyful man in all the world. Just as there is no sorrow so deep as that which comes from the sense of God's displeasure, so there is

48:17 no joy so high as that which attends the revelation of his favor and his smile. And I'd like to say by way of a more detailed application, beware of that teaching on the Christian life that says there is a state attainable where all is joy and peace, morning, noon, night, moment by moment, hour by hour, day in, day out. What that's saying is you're never going to have to reckon with your sin. And any state of the Christian life that bypasses an honest reckoning with sin is not biblical. I don't care who teaches it.

48:56 Anyone gets beyond praying Psalm 51, he's gone too far for me. He's gone too far for Paul. He's gone too far for all the great things. On the other hand, beware of the gloomy theory that would give the impression that he who goes bowed down in mourning all the day, day and night, week in, week out, is the most sanctified soul, no? Because if he's really dealt with his sin, sooner or later God's going to play a new tune, and when he does, he's going to find an ark somewhere and dance before it. He's going to have joy and gladness. So you see, there are two extremes of teaching in the Christian life, each one capturing one element of truth, but neglecting to face squarely the other. And that approach to the Christian life that holds out its tantalizing base before the Christian, ah, would you enter a state where there is complete and unruffled, day by day, week in, week out, peace and joy and victory and happiness and never a twinkle and a flicker.

49:56 Poor saints of God. Oh, and their fangs drip and they say, oh, God, I'd love that. Well, thank God we're going to have it, but I don't see that it's promised this side of glory. There's an element of truth that if we've dealt with our sins, we ought to know that joy, that peace that comes from a purged conscience. But let's not forget the process by which we come to the purged conscience and the state we're in at times before we come to it. There's a state where there will be misery in the heart, and on the other hand, there is a state where those who are reacting against this overreact, and they see those passages, many of the Psalms and those statements of Paul in Romans 7 and Galatians 5 that speak of the continuing conflict within the breast of the believer. And they say, ah, you see, there's the conflict, there's the mourning, there's the brokenness. And they fail to see that there comes a time when God speaks joy and God speaks gladness. Well, I submit to

Summary and Closing Application

50:58 you these four basic lessons from the text. I hope they will be helpful to you. May I give them to you quickly in review? David saw the right relationship between happiness and holiness. No prayer for happiness till he had thoroughly dealt with his sin. Secondly, he acknowledged that only God could bring the joy and the gladness. Make me to hear. Thirdly, he recognized that God had brought him to this miserable state and praised that the same God who in love has broken his bones would now heal him. And then fourthly, we see in David the example of God's love for people, of the principle that the Christian is the most sorrowful and the most joyful man in all the world. Dear child of God, do you know anything experimentally or professing Christian of what I've spoken of tonight? You see, a Christian is not only known by his joys but by his sorrows. What makes him sorrowful? What makes him joyful? And there

51:51 are some of you in this building who are utter strangers to all that I've mentioned tonight. Your whole concept of Christianity is simply a purely self-centered one. What can I get from Jesus? It'll tickle my ribs. Oh, may God have mercy upon you and show you tonight until you've been wounded of God with the wounds of conviction and seen your estrangement from God by nature because of sin, your estrangement and rebellion to God because of sin, and that his frown is upon all rebel sinners. Until you see yourself in that state and flee for refuge to Christ and fall before him, embracing him on his terms, you'll never know. Any true joy now, and worse than this, you'll know not an ounce of it for all eternity. Again, may I give a closing word to you dear young people this morning, this afternoon,

52:43 this evening? We don't like to be sad, do we? We don't like to be sad, do we? If God begins to wound the heart of some of you dear young people as we pray, he will. Don't fight those wounds. Far better to have God wound you now than wound you for eternity. Dear parents, if God wounds you now, then wound you for eternity. Dear parents, if God wounds you now, if God begins to wound your blessed children, the darlings of your heart, don't you put salve upon the wounds, the salve of a little decision, the salve of a few scripture verses. You shut them up to God until he pours in the balm of his own forgiveness.

53:31 Make me to hear joy and gladness that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. May God bless the truth of his word to all of our hearts. Amen.