O God of My Salvation

The Model of Penitence and David's Return to Guilt

0:03 Let us turn in our Bibles to the 51st Psalm again tonight, the 51st Psalm.

0:13 We have considered in our studies together the first 13 verses of this psalm, this psalm in which God has given to us a model of penitence. One of the marks, the characteristics, the character traits of a true Christian is that he is, among other things, a penitent. He is a believer. He is a seeker after God. He is a seeker after the way of holiness. He is one who rejoices in Christ.

1:06 He is one who is concerned about others. He is one who regards the holy law of God seriously. And among the many characteristics of a true Christian, we would have to place as one of the indispensable characteristics or characteristics of a true Christian is that he is a true penitent. Or you remember in that beautiful description of Christian character in what we commonly call the Beatitudes, our Lord said, Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

1:39 And what is mourning but one of the essential elements of true penitence. And so though we may be accused by the world as being morbid and by much of the Christian church, the church casting the same accusation at us, we must never regard lightly those great sections of the word of God which not only tell us that we ought to be penitents, those who experience true repentance for sin, but we must regard seriously those passages which give us a model of true penitence. For as I trust you have seen in our studies, the human heart is so perverse by nature that it left to itself, it doesn't even know, how to deal with its malady. And even in the heart of the Christian, our confession of sin must be shaped and molded by the word of God. Just as our Lord teaches us how to pray in that outline of prayer that we commonly call the Lord's Prayer, so he instructs us how to repent in passages such as the 51st Psalm. You remember that the main thrust of this psalm begins with the full acknowledgement of his sin, David does, and a spreading out, out of the guilt of his sin, and in those first seven verses, he mentions nothing about the results or effects of sin upon him personally. He's not dealing with the manifestations of his guilt, but he's dealing with the guilt itself.

3:08 He's not dealing with the fruits of his sin, but with the root of his sin. But having dealt with the root, now he's concerned that all the fruit in his life that is withered because of this sin, that that fruit might be restored. Hence he prays, make me to hear joy and gladness as we studied in verse 8. Then he prays that God would hide his face from his sins and create in him a clean heart.

3:33 And then he rises to a tremendous pitch of desire when he says in verse 11, Lord, don't take from me realized communion. Cast me not away from thy presence. Then he says, don't take from me conscious support. Take not thy spirit from me.

3:52 Then he prays positively, restore to me the joy of thy salvation and then restore to me spiritual stability. Uphold me with a free, a stable spirit. And then the glorious result of this will be, then will I teach transgressors thy ways and sinners shall be converted unto thee. Now he comes back in a cycle.

4:14 He does this. He seems to pray about an area and commits it to God, but then as it were tapers off, he comes back. Back again. And now we find him returning to the theme of this matter of the guilt of his sin in verse 14.

David's Unique Address to God: 'God of My Salvation'

4:30 And he cries out in these words, Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. O Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. Now will you notice in the first place, in verse 14, how he addresses God. This is something unique in the psalm.

4:56 Up till now, he has always addressed God with the simple term, O God. Notice verse 1. Have mercy upon me, O God. Then down further in the psalm, verse 10, Create in me a clean heart, O God.

5:15 But now, he addresses God in a peculiar way. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, O God, thou God of my salvation. And it's as though as he prayed, his faith grew stronger, and for the first time in this prayer, he says anything that would give some indication that he's confident that he is in a covenant, a saving relationship with God. Up until now, you could almost say that these words could be placed in the mouth of a sinner who has never, never returned in the way of repentance and faith, and is coming as a prodigal for the first time to the Father.

5:58 There's nothing in these words, or very little, except some of these things like, Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, as we study them. But for the most part, these words could be put in the mouth of someone who was not even a child of God, and who was coming for the first time to apply himself to the throne of grace for mercy. But now, at this point, we are given the key to the fact that this is, in a very real sense, the prayer of a child of God when he addresses God in this form, O God, thou God of my salvation. Now, the word salvation to David had that connotation that it would have to a Jew of deliverance, the concept of deliverance from danger or deliverance from one's enemies. We always read back into this word salvation, the full richness of its New Testament meaning, deliverance from sin and all its consequences. And many times, it's even more limited. We think of salvation in terms of justification, God saving us from the just penalty of our sins.

7:08 But here David addresses God as the God of his deliverance. This God, who in his mighty delivering work is David's own personal God, thou God of my salvation. Lord, you're the author of my deliverance. I've experienced your delivering power in the past, and now I have come under the bondage of this particular sin, but you have not cut off my soul from a covenant relationship to thee.

7:37 Lord, in spite of my sin, in spite of my failure, in spite of my terrible fall, thou art still the God of my salvation. And so he addresses, he addresses God with this peculiar term of personal attachment. And what do we learn from this? As David addresses God in this way in the 14th verse, I believe we have a hint of something here.

The Strengthening of Faith in Prayer and the Specificity of Confession

8:04 And the main principle is this, that when we come, having the weight of particular sin upon our hearts, and we're seeking the Lord that he would have mercy upon us, crying out to him that he would blot out that sin, many times when we begin, that prayer, or such prayer, there is a terrible sense of distance. The smart of that sin is so real in our conscience. And we can't come near with such terms of the God of my salvation. We can just come and address him in those very general terms of have mercy upon me, O God.

8:42 Anyone who can have the guilt of a particular sin lying upon his conscience, unrepentant of, not dealt with, and come crashing into the presence of God and say, dear God, there's something wrong with him. Something wrong with him. He's not thinking about what he's saying, or he doesn't have any thought of God in himself as he ought to. For sin always brings the sense of separation.

9:06 Sin always brings the sense of distance. And so David approaches God with that sense upon his soul. But now as he prays, his faith grows stronger in the very context of prayer. Now this is a very practical lesson.

9:22 If you are to be biblically penitent, and much of our problem is we just don't stick with the thing long enough. So many times we just utter a little ditty and pronounce ourselves absolved. We sort of talk to ourselves like a priest does to a person on the other side of the black veil. Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.

9:41 And we come in and say, O God, I've sinned. Forgive me in Jesus' name. Amen. And go our way without ever being brought to that sense of restored relationship with God to where we can say, and call Him Thou God of my salvation.

9:56 And so it would seem that David in his prayer experienced the strengthening of his faith that brought him to this point where he could address God in these personal terms and wonder of wonders. He does so in the very context of one of the most specific confessions of his sin. Notice not only how he addressed God, but what petition he was bringing to God in verse 14. Deliver me from blood guiltiness.

10:27 Now this word, blood guiltiness, is a difficult word to pin down. Literally translated, it would read, deliver me from bloods, plural.

10:38 Some feel that this refers to any capital crime, a crime that deserved the shedding of a man's blood. Both murder and adultery came under that classification under the Old Testament law. And David knew that. So when he sent Uriah up to the front of the battle and he was slain, it was very explicitly stated by the prophet Nathan in 2 Samuel 12 in verse 9 that David had been guilty of murder.

11:08 2 Samuel chapter 12 and verse 9.

11:18 Wherefore, Nathan speaking to David, hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight? Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword. Well, wait a minute. I thought Uriah was killed up there at the front of the battle.

11:33 Yes, he was.

11:36 But God indicts David for that sin and says, David, you killed him. Then he says, you've taken his wife to be thy wife and has slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Because David deliberately schemed and arranged the situation in which Uriah was to be killed many miles away from the palace by the sword of an Ammonite, God says, because David arranged it, it's just as though he were there right on the battlefield, took the sword and plunged it into the breast of Uriah. Tremendous principle here about this matter of God knows where to lay the blame for sin and it has all kinds of implications.

12:16 I don't want to go into them, but even in the matter of how you drive, you see, you drive carelessly, willfully so, and you cause someone else to kill another person, you're guilty of that murder. That's how practical it is. When you willfully do something that has a chain effect that brings evil upon others, you're guilty of that sin. That's exactly what God does here.

12:39 He says, David, you killed him.

12:42 The Ammonite who did it is insignificant at this point. David, this is your sin. So it could be referring to this, sin alone, that he was guilty of the blood of Uriah or that he was guilty of a sin that deserved capital crime, murder, as we find it here, and of course, adultery, for an adulterer in Israel was not to have even any kind of leniency shown, but he was to be taken out and stoned to death. So either David is praying, Lord, deliver me from that guilt which I now bear, which demands the shedding of my blood, the sentence of death hangs over my head because of my sin, or he could be praying particularly about the sin of Uriah, deliver me, the sin of shedding his blood. But in either case, whether we take it just the reference to murder, which in turn demanded the life of the murderer, or whether it's referring to murder and adultery as deserving David's blood, he's praying for forgiveness, not for some little, what we would call little sin, but even in the eyes of society, what sins are worse than murder and adultery? And yet it's in the context of confessing those sins, those sins that he says, God of my salvation. You mean God is the Savior of a murderer and an adulterer?

14:09 That's exactly what David is saying. Exactly. Though I've murdered and committed adultery, thou art my Savior. And so he's praying that God would deliver him from the guilt incurred by the shedding of the blood of Uriah, or the guilt, that demands the letting out of his own blood.

The Issue of Deliverance: Singing Aloud of God's Righteousness

14:34 That takes faith, to call somebody your Savior against whom you've committed such sins. And yet this is exactly what David does. So having looked briefly at how he addresses God, in the second place, that for which he is petitioning God, deliver me from this blood guiltiness, he tells us in the third place in verse 14, what will be the issue of this deliverance. And my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.

15:07 Lord, if you can still be the Savior of a man who's committed adultery and murder and who deserves death, then that man who's thus spared and delivered will have but one song for the rest of his days. I will sing aloud of thy righteousness, that righteousness which you have worked out, that righteousness which you put to the account of guilty sinners such as I, that righteousness which is sufficient to cover even the sins of adultery and of murder. Lord, if you will deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation, my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. Now let's look at these words in a little bit more detail. Notice in the first place the fact of his sinning, singing. My tongue shall sing.

16:05 Doesn't sound like he's singing in verse 1. Have mercy upon me, O God. Verse 3, I acknowledge my transgression. Verse 4, against thee and thee only have I sinned.

16:17 Verse 5, I was shapen in iniquity. This is not singing, this is mourning. Here's a man mourning. Here's a man groaning out the complaint of his heart about his corruption, his evil and his sin.

16:31 And yet he moves all the way from the terrible bass note of mourning to these treble notes of a lilting song of the righteousness of God. From mourning to singing. How's that happen? When you get 12 hours sleep?

16:47 No, when you face your sin honestly as David faced it and believe in spite of your sin if you've been brought into a saving relationship with him that he is the God of salvation and the God of salvation. That the blood of his son Jesus Christ indeed can cleanse from all sin. So he's assured that he shall sing. The fact of his singing, well you'll notice in the next place the intensity of his singing.

17:15 He says, my tongue shall sing, what? Sing aloud of thy righteousness. He specifies how he'll be engaged in singing. Someone has said all passions are loud.

17:29 Anger, it derides with aloud. That's the way anger most often expresses itself. You raise your voice in indignation.

17:40 Anger derides with a loud voice. What does sorrow do? Deep sorrow will cry with a loud voice. The scriptural term is wailing.

17:52 Fear, it'll shriek with a loud voice. The proverbial woman seeing a mouse.

18:00 She's not too concerned about volume.

18:03 And so the scripture reveals in this passage, and in many others, joy will sing aloud. My tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. Well, why? Is there any virtue in noise?

18:17 No. But when the heart intensely feels something, and it's giving expression of that with the lips, the only way we know how to do it with the lips is in terms of volume. How else can you express the deep feeling of the heart except with volume? That's why when someone is greatly enthused about something, there will come shouts of enthusiasm.

18:37 That's why when they're bitterly grieved, there will be uncontrollable loud sobbing. That's why when there's anger, there will not only be the red face, but the intense loud voice attending it. And so David recognizes this principle, that if his heart is full of praise, the only way it can express its fullness is by loudness of volume. Now, there's no virtue in noise, but there sure is some virtue in a heart full of thanksgiving to God.

19:08 See, that ties in with what I was talking about earlier in the service. That's why it's a little bit hard for me to understand how people can be content to praise God with a third of their volume. I don't really. It just goes beyond me.

19:22 I can't understand it. I can't understand it. Maybe it's because I've got built-in microphones and talk too loud anyway. That could be the reason.

19:30 But you know, I've noticed something. I refuse to buy this thing that's just a matter of personality. I've seen some of the most meek people in the world, very, quiet and soft-spoken, get excited about something, and there's a native eloquence and volume to enthusiasm. And I've seen some pretty quiet people get pretty excited and show it in their volume.

19:51 Some of you fellows, remember what it was like when you were about 13, 14, when the voice wasn't quite down in the mail register? It wasn't up there, still in that. And when you got excited, your voice went whoop and shot up into that other register. You can remember that.

20:07 Sure. And when did that happen? When you got excited. And so you tried to be very sedate and calm.

20:12 Because every time you got excited, you got embarrassed when your voice cracked and went into the upper register. But now this is a common experience of life. And so as David has thoroughly confessed his sin to God and has risen, as it were, to even a pinnacle of confession with this blood guiltiness and addresses God as the God of his salvation, he says he will not only sing that his mourning will be turned to rejoicing, but that he will not only sing that his mourning will be turned to rejoicing, but that he will not only sing that his mourning will be turned to rejoicing, but that he will sing aloud. And will you notice in the third place what will be the theme of his song?

20:44 My tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. Lord, I won't sing aloud of my conviction. I won't sing aloud of my sin. I won't sing aloud of my repentance.

21:01 I won't sing aloud of my faith. I'll have but one theme. If you can take someone like David who had so much life, and so much privilege, and who willfully, deliberately turned his back upon that light and that privilege and committed the sins of adultery and murder by proxy, Lord, if thou wilt deliver me from blood guiltiness, I will have but one theme for the rest of my days. Thy righteousness.

21:28 Thy righteousness. There's another portion of Scripture that says I will speak of thy righteousness and of thine only. Could it be that perhaps David had begun to think I don't know, could it be that he had begun to think that maybe he wasn't quite as wicked as the folk around him? Remember, he was a man after God's own heart and he had been given such tremendous privileges.

21:53 Maybe he began to think that there was something a little bit better in David than in somebody else.

22:00 But after you've been shocked with a terrible realization that you, privileged David, have stooped to the lowest level of humanity, in outright beast-like passion and adultery, issuing an adultery, and in scheming, underhanded planning that would result in the murder of a noble soldier, you've pretty well had any thought that you might have something a little better in you. You've pretty well had it killed. If you had any bubble of an illusion that maybe you weren't quite as depraved as anybody else, it's pretty well been broken.

God's Purpose in Allowing Sin and the Theme of Peter's Song

22:42 Now, don't misunderstand. Understand me. Though God is never the author of the sins of men, and particularly of His people, there are times when God allows the protective wall of His keeping power to be lifted and allows His children to enmesh themselves in areas of sin and disobedience that He might bring them to a shocking awareness of the terrible potential that lies within their breast so that they might learn something new of what it is to sing of the righteousness of God and of His righteousness only.

23:23 Does your experience confirm what I'm saying?

23:27 I know it does of some of you, for you've mentioned this to me in personal counseling.

23:34 I'm sure if ever Peter could sing and read the 51st Psalm, he could after that night when having boasted, I'm too strong to ever deny you, Lord, that doesn't happen to Peters. Oh, that might happen to little doubting Thomases. And that might happen to little meek Matthews. Not big bull Peter.

23:54 No, I will never deny thee. And then you remember the story. For the cock crew he denied his Lord three times and our Lord looked at him and he went out and he wept bitterly. What song did Peter have from then on?

24:07 Only one song. And he gives us a hint of it when he writes 1 Peter. He writes that letter to the people dispersed abroad who've obtained like precious faith through the righteousness of our God. Through the righteousness of our God.

24:20 Through the righteousness of our God. God and Savior. Maybe that's 2 Peter. It's the first part of one of those two letters.

24:25 Who've attained like precious faith through the righteousness of our God and Savior. Peter had one song. From then on, I will sing aloud of thy righteousness. It's a terrible thing to come to an honest biblical view of how rotten you are.

24:45 Terrible to have to come to it the way David did. But far better that you come to that shocking sight that you have. That you might appreciate the righteousness of God in Christ and that you go through life deluded with a form of self-righteousness in which you deceive yourself that maybe you're not quite as bad as the other color. The theme of the song of a penitent sinner, of a penitent saint, should be the righteousness of God in His Son, Jesus Christ.

25:17 I'm always suspicious when I hear an announcement of an evangelist or someone who's going to give his testimony. He's going to talk about from the pool room to the pool pit. And he's going to go into all the details of his pool room life almost in a way that you wonder if he doesn't have a secret hankering to be back in. Always suspicious when someone is singing aloud of their past life of sin.

25:43 I'm always suspicious when people give testimonies and the testimony is shot full, not primarily of the word I, because any testimony will have I in it. And Paul's testimony is recorded in Acts 22, has lots of I's in it. But wherever the I is there, it's all a terrible confession of what he was. And wherever there's anything that's worth anything, it's talking about what he did.

26:07 And when I hear testimonies that focus upon, well, I decided to follow the Lord and I accepted Christ and I did this and I did that, something's wrong. That person hasn't yet learned to sing aloud of the righteousness of God and of God. And I'm not going to sing aloud of the righteousness of God and of God. And I'm not going to sing aloud of the righteousness of God and of God.

26:24 And I'm not going to sing aloud of his righteousness only.

Application: Sin as a Reminder of God's Righteousness

26:27 Now, what can we learn by way of application from this 14th verse? Having considered how David addresses himself to God, the God of his salvation, what he's addressing him for, deliverance from blood guiltiness, what will be the result of this deliverance, this song of the righteousness of God? Is there something that is very practical to us who find day by day that we too must confess our sin? I think there is.

26:54 First of all, let us learn with David to have each occasion of sin be a fresh reminder of our desperate need of a righteousness not our own. Now, all of us who are Christians will confess in our sober moments if we're asked, what is your only hope of acceptance with God? I hope you'd say, my only hope is the righteousness of God imputed to me, the very righteousness of Jesus Christ. Jesus, thy blood in righteousness, my beauty are, my glory, my glory is dressed.

27:26 But though we confess that,

27:30 we betray ourselves. We really don't have a sense of warm realization of what it means to be accepted in the Beloved, to have His righteousness put to our account. How do I know that's not so? Because in your life and mine, sometimes days pass in which we do not consciously, deliberately, in the place of prayer, sing aloud of the righteousness of God.

27:56 Revel and glory in the fact that our standing before God is wholly on the basis of who Christ is and what He's done. We take that for granted until we stumble and we sin. And then there's that sense of distance and suddenly you don't feel quite so free coming to have your devotions. You feel that cloud of guilt and the conscience is smitten and the spirit oppressed.

28:22 Now, what should we do? Allow that fresh sense of guilt to trigger a fresh, fresh awareness that the only basis upon which you ever stood before God was His righteousness in the first place. And the fact that you were getting so cocky in drawing near to Him is because you thought maybe your three or four days of relative victory in your Christian life may be added a little bit to your access to God.

28:47 Well, David learned to allow his sin to become his servant, to lead him to a fresh appreciation of the righteousness of God. And that's what we must do. We must allow, must make each occasion of sin to be a fresh reminder of the righteousness of God. And then in the second place, having been brought to that realization, let each reminder of the righteousness of God initiate fresh praise to God and let's continue to meditate upon it until the heart is so full that we say with David, my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness and though, Lord, I can't do it in this particular place I'm in or the people in the apartment above me will be banging the, the, the, the, banging the broom on the floor to shush me up or maybe the rest of the household will be disturbed and I'll awake them. Lord, I don't want to break the second table of the law of loving my neighbor as myself, but Lord, if I could just be out somewhere where I could shout aloud, I sure would. You see, there's no virtue in the thing itself. Anybody can talk loud who wants to,

29:53 except my friend Paul.

29:57 Poor Paul, I pick on him about getting him to talk louder. But we can talk loud if we want to. So the virtue's not in volume per se, but the principle is to stay with this thought that the righteousness of God in Christ is ours even though our sin has been as great as David if we're in covenant relationship with Him, if He is the God of our salvation and stay with that thought until the heart is so warmed that it fain would sing aloud for righteousness.

Application: Guilt and Song are Mutually Exclusive

30:30 Then a third principle that I see in this text is that guilt and the conscience and songs, songs on the lips are mutually exclusive.

30:39 Guilt on the conscience, songs on the lips,

30:45 rain shall never meet.

30:48 Lord, the guilt of blood is upon the conscience. I sing, but Lord, if you'll deliver me,

30:58 I'll sing aloud.

31:00 So when you don't have a song,

31:03 probably because you've got some guilt lying upon the conscience, and you try to impose a song,

31:10 overlay a song on the hard core of guilt, and it's pretty futile business. Isn't it? Isn't it? And even the preacher standing up and scolding you for not singing aloud doesn't do too much unless the heart is free from the sense of guilt and has the fragrance of the fresh application of the blood of Christ by faith.

Application: Persist in Seeking God Until the Song is Restored

31:37 Even here, we'll be able to say with David, my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. And then the fourth principle that I see in this text is we should be exhorted not to stop in our seeking of the face of God when we've sinned until the song down here, or even at verse 10, created me a clean heart. We could say that he'd gotten forgiveness, washed me thoroughly, I acknowledged my transgression. Behold, I was shapen in a full and open confession.

32:11 But he longs to have the song restored. He doesn't quit his prayer till he rises to that level. Let's look at several other psalms that illustrate this so beautifully. The third psalm and the sixth psalm are two that come to my mind.

32:26 How does the third psalm begin? It begins on the base note. David's complaining. O Lord, how are they increased that trouble me?

32:36 Many are they that rise up against me, many that say of my soul, there's no help for that fellow in God. Now he's going to reason himself into a place of faith. But thou, O Lord, art a shield for me, my glory, and the lifter up of mine head. I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill.

32:55 I lie, I laid me down and slept, I awake for the Lord, sustain me. Now he rises in faith. I will not be afraid of ten thousand, thousands of the people that have set themselves against me round about. Arise, O Lord, save me, O my God, for thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheekbone.

33:12 Thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly. Salvation belongeth unto the Lord. Thy blessing is upon thy people. See what he does?

33:20 Starts out, Lord, how are they increased that trouble me? Many are saying, no help for that fellow. But David sticks with it until he's been brought to the place of a loud and glad affirmation of his faith. Confidence in God.

33:34 You see the same basic pattern in the sixth psalm. O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak. O Lord, heal me, for my bones are vexed.

33:48 My soul also is sore vexed. No song here, but thou, O Lord, how long? Return, O Lord, deliver my soul. O save me for thy mercy's sake.

33:59 For in death there is no remembrance of thee in the grave. Who shall give thee thanks? I am weary with my groaning. All the night make I my bed to swim.

34:09 I water my couch with my tears. Mine eye is consumed because of grief. It waxes old because of mine enemies. Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity, for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping.

34:22 The Lord hath heard my supplication. The Lord will receive my prayer. Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed. Let them return and be ashamed suddenly.

34:31 You see, the mounting of his faith being brought from that state of mourning to that state of glad affirmation. The Lord hath heard my supplication. The Lord will receive my prayer. Now, frankly, I must confess that this is one of my own problems.

34:50 I just plain want to rush God. And I just don't like the idea of having to stick with an issue until God has been pleased to restore the song.

35:02 But I don't know any way around this. I don't know I wish we could give some pat little formula that if you pray X number of words and you look away to Christ and to his blood for cleansing and forgiveness, then ipso facto in three and two tenths minutes you will have restored joy. No, the ways of the spirit are like the wind. Sometimes the conscience that's smarting under guilt can come to the place of singing almost instantaneously.

35:27 But there are other times when it seems that we lie beneath the pressure of a smitten conscience and we can't predict the ways of God with us but pressing his promises pleading him as the God of our salvation. Let's not try to restore our own song. Let's ask God to do this for us. Which brings us very briefly now to verse 15 which in some senses is in some ways is a repetition or an amplification of verse 14.

The Petition: 'O Lord Open Thou My Lips'

35:56 O Lord open thou my lips and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. What is his petition? Here that God would open up his lips. Sin has sealed his lips to praise and now forgiveness and cleansing should open those lips in the praises of God.

36:21 And again we come to the tragedy of sin. We may shut our own lips by our sin but we can't open them again.

36:30 Just as we may amputate an arm but we can't put it back on again. We may drown a man but can't give him life. We can go out and sell our song for some silly little sin but we can't get it back. And so David acknowledges this and he says O Lord open thou my lips.

36:56 And what he meant by that was not just to do something with the physiological structure of his mouth that once again he could sing. No, no, no. We're in the realm here again of poetic language. What he's saying is God do everything necessary.

37:11 Fire. In my spirit. In my mind. Exposition.

37:15 That once again my lips will be engaged in holy praise. And where you find someone who's praising God with his lips and it's something more than a mere parrot-like experience. Something has gone on in that person's entire being.

37:31 I've often been fascinated with the 40th Psalm along this line where the psalmist said I cried unto the Lord I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined unto me and heard my cry he brought me up out of an horrible pit and set my feet upon the rock and then he says he hath put a new song in my mouth even praise to our God many shall hear it no it says many shall see it well how do you see a song?

37:55 Do you ever see a song? The psalmist said thou hast put a new song in my mouth even praise to our God many shall see it how do you see a song? Well you see a song whenever that song is a genuine song a whole life has been touched by the delivering power of God and you see that you see that and so apparently David has this in mind here open thou my lips Lord do whatever is necessary in my spirit that once again there will be that longing to sing forth thy praise sin has shut my lips but grace alone can open them do we believe that?

The Result: 'My Mouth Shall Show Forth Thy Praise'

38:38 Well I don't want to get the application yet I want to do that a little bit at the end and what will be the result after the petition open thou my lips here's the result Lord if you'll do this my mouth shall show forth declare forth held abroad thy praise and again we have the mouth we had in verse 14 the tongue singing aloud of righteousness now the mouth showing forth the praises of God it's as though David recognizes well the devil has overplayed his hand and this is a marvelous thing to me do you think that the devil ever would have tempted Adam and Eve to do that Adam and Eve to sin if he knew that he would be doing that which would be the occasion of a great multitude whom no man can number being gathered around the throne of God singing the song of Moses and of the Lamb crying out from the depths of their hearts worthy is the Lamb to receive blessing and glory and honor and power and might and dominion I doubt he would have wouldn't have been worth it I think he maybe would have rather had a world full of people who were holy by virtue of their creation and not by virtue of redemption because in a peculiar way the grace of God shines forth in his redemptive work and so David here acknowledges

40:06 if the Lord would open his lips his mouth would show forth the praises of God now what lesson do we learn from this in closing here's the lesson that when we gather in our public assemblies we are not and this is something that has been much upon my heart recently the praises of God are not and may that cursed word never be heard in our midst a preliminary to the preaching the scripture describes God in one place like this O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel God dwells in the midst of the praises of his people and when we come together one of the most essential elements I won't say thee but I'll say one of the most essential elements of our corporate worship is this matter of our united praise of the living God he tabernacling amongst his people as he says there in quoted the Old Testament passage quoted in 2nd Corinthians I will walk among them and dwell among the people of God and where God is he is to be praised he's in our midst he tabernacles amongst his people therefore praise should be the characteristic of the people of God the hundredth Psalm make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands come before his presence with what

41:35 with singing enter into his courts with thanksgiving into his gates with praise our way of approach to God should be paved with praise to God is a highway of praise how are we going to lay that highway and then walk upon it it's only as we come conscious that the Lord must open our lips and that he by grace must alter anything in us that would keep us from coming with everything that's bound up in those little words open thou my lips where my heart is cold warm it that my lips might be opened in praise where my heart may have the stain of some unconfessed sin Lord deal with it you see if we get a half a dozen people coming who've got some conscious controversy with God you've been miffed with a wife or husband maybe even in the scurry and hurry of getting ready Sunday morning and you've come off to church and that thing's not been dealt with and here's another half a dozen over here maybe no conscious controversy with God but just a general spirit of spiritual dullness spent no time in the word getting your mind oriented to think of the greatness of God and the wonder of his grace so you've got a half a dozen with some conscious controversy their lips won't be opened oh yeah they may sit there and go through the motions then you've got another half a dozen whose hearts are cold and barren their lips won't be opened then maybe you've got

43:05 another half a dozen who may be not in a particular state of spiritual dullness or any conscious controversy with God but they've been Martha's their minds have just been so distracted by many things that their lips will not be opened well before long you've got half the assembly who come with closed lips is it no wonder that our praise is not glorious I think the first morning the greater majority of us come to the place of worship having previously met God with this prayer open thou my lips and Lord deal with anything that will keep me from open lips there'll be something so qualitatively different in our praise that you may actually have a secret hunch and a secret wish that the preacher get a quick case of laryngitis that you not be bothered to have to listen to him this is so wonderful you see beloved I've been privileged to be a few times in situations where God has opened the lips congregation in praise over a little think we've begun to scratch it as a congregation and one of the yearnings hard as your pastor is that we learn what it is people of the open lips in praise and I'm not scolding you now I'm exhorting you to pray that well what in the world is the preacher talking about I think maybe he's got something there we ask the Lord to convey to you

44:35 what I'm apparently so imperfectly communicating along this line tonight one of the most practical implications of this text is that if we would be a people reveling in the grace of God in the righteousness of his son we must be a people of the opened lips will you try I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand and promise me because then you'd have the double guilt of having broken your promise to me but will you just purpose as you sit there tonight to say Lord by your grace I want to take some time ere I come to church next Sunday to pray that you'd open my lips and that you'd deal with any blockage whether it's individualism indifference or carelessness or just mental distraction whatever it is if we would come pleading with God to open our lips then what will happen David says why the result is inevitable my mouth shall show for my praise now I realize that we have varying degrees of ability to sing with volume I'm not just talking about volume beloved please don't put that meaning on it but there's a quality of reality that'll burst forth upon your very countenance when you know that you're praising the living God in the assembly of his people deliver me from blood guiltiness oh God thou God of my salvation

46:02 and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness oh Lord open thou my lips and my mouth shall show forth thy praise as I close tonight I want to ask you a very simple question have you got a tongue and a mouth and a mouth that is in singing condition tonight do you when David got done he did that's why we've got the 51st song when he was done no longer was there the guilt that sealed his lips but the guilt was purged away by the appointed means purged me with the sprinkling of blood and once again the lips were opened in praise are you in singing condition tonight that's the question I'll leave you with as you go home tonight are you in singing condition if not then you walk the path that David walked and you seek the Lord until with David your lips are opened again in praise ah but you say I've been so miserable in my experience I've been so unfaithful this was a murderer and an adulterer pray there's hope for you this is a man who'd been lying under the terrible pall of closed lips for a whole year there'd been no song

47:30 yet he says if God will bring the deliverance deliverance the mouth the lips will be opened again may God grant that we shall learn this lesson and increasingly apply it in our own Christian experience and then as God is pleased to do what we pray we will be more and more a people of the opened lips and the praises of God in this place will be glorious praises let us pray