Believer’s Sins. (A Bible Study from my pastor for nearly 30 years) Brother Ken Jacques
Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Psalm 51:2-3
Introduction – This psalm is a song of repentance by king David, after he has been rebuked and chastened for adultery and murder. He is suffering greatly, and desires to be healed and restored back into perfect fellowship with God. His pleadings with the Almighty here provide an example for all believers who have fallen into sin. God’s attitude about believers’ sins can be summarized as follows:
1. PURPOSE – 1 John 2:1 – ‘that ye sin not’.
2. PROVISION – 1 John 1:7 – ‘and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin’.
3. PLAN – 1 John 1:9 – ‘if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’.
Psalm 51 deals with the….
1. REASON for sins – (v.5) our fallen nature is at the root of our sins – ‘Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me’.
2. RESULTS of sins – (v.8) misery – ‘Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice’.
3. REMEDY for sins – (v.1-2) mercy – ‘Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness: according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin’. In Psalm 51, David reveals that his sins had wrought devastating consequences in his life, as it does in ours. Notice some of these consequences which we can expect when we choose to sin. Sin:
DEFILES OUR MINDS AND BODIES
In v.2, David is compelled to ask God to ‘wash’ and ‘cleanse‘ him. In v.7, he requests that God ‘purge’ and ‘wash’ him. Sin results in a defilement which causes the sinning believer to ‘feel’ dirty. In addition, he is made unfit for God’s fellowship. We see in 1 John 1:7, that this cleansing from defilement is accomplished by the saviour – ‘and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin’.
DULLS OUR CONSCIENCE
David realized that somehow his sins had changed him on the inside. It hardens the heart and conscience, and prevents right thinking and action. In v.10, he wrote ‘Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me’. The scriptures use leaven as a type of sin, and it certainly fits in here! A little leaven introduced into a lump of dough results in the whole lump being ‘leavened’.
DIMS OUR WITNESS
Unconfessed sin steals away our boldness and power in witness. We become more and more hardened in our hearts toward the awful plight of sinners around us. David had experienced ‘spiritual lock jaw’ himself, as we can see in v.14-15 – ‘Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvat ion: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. O LORD, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall show forth thy praise’. Sin diminishes our confidence when facing sinners, and makes us unwilling to tell them of Jesus. Like David, we need to confess our sins, so they need not be an obstacle to our faithful witness for the saviour.
DECEIVES OUR HEARTS
Truth and wisdom should abide in the heart and mind of the believer, but sin deceives the heart into thinking right is wrong and wrong is right. Notice in v.6, David says ‘Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part, thou shalt make me to know wisdom‘. He is desiring that God clean the clutter that sin has left behind in his heart, so that he can think rightly once again.
DISTANCES US FROM GOD
Sin separates us from God’s fellowship. Now, God has promised that he will ‘never leave thee, nor forsake thee’, but we have no guarantee of his close personal fellowship. Our sins grieve his heart, and cause him to withdraw himself to await our repentance and confession. He still loves us, but we cannot expect close fellowship with him when we hold on to our sins. Look at v.11, where David says ‘Cast me not away from thy presence’. A desire to have fellowship restored as before is the essence of his prayer.
DIMINISHES OUR SPIRITUAL POWER
We need the power of the Spirit of God upon us each day as we live for him and serve him. In the Old Testament Dispensation, the Spirit did not indwell believers as he does in New Testament times. But he did come ‘upon‘ them as needed to enable them for special tasks or to fulfill certain offices. The pouring on of anointing oil on the head of priests, prophets and kings was a symbolic show of this anointing of power needed to carry out their work. David is fearing the loss of this anointing of the Spirit in v.11, when he writes ‘and take not thy holy spirit from me’.
DEPRIVES US OF GOD’S BLESSINGS
There are blessings that we often take for granted which may be lost when sin breaks our fellowship with God. We cannot, then, have his best. In v.12, David speaks of two of these blessings he lost due to his sin. First, he lost his joy. Notice he says ‘Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation’. Our christian joy is replaced by conviction of sin and a guilty conscience. Second, he loses God’s help and strength ‘uphold me‘. It isn’t that God cannot help, or that he is unconcerned, it is simply that allowing our sins to discipline us is often the best course of chastening available to him. Third, he lost his praise. Notice in v.15, he speaks of the need for God to ‘open thou my lips; and my mouth shall show forth thy praise’.
DESTROYS OUR HEALTH
There is little doubt that sin adversely affects our health. Now, all men share the common curse of infirmity and death due to Adam’s sin. However, sometimes there is a direct connection between our sin and physical infirmities. Notice in v.8, David speaks of the ‘bones which thou hast broken’. Some bodily pain and disease is directly due, as was apparently the case with David in this psalm, to God’s chastening for sin. Some is simply the ‘natural’ consequences of flaunting God’s divine law. God has arranged things so that sin has natural consequences as well as supernatural ones. It is forever true that ‘whatsoever a man soweth, that will he also reap’. Sexual sins such as adultery, fornication and homosexuality often result in horrible diseases…..and we ought not be surprised about it.
DISRUPTS OUR PRAYERS
This same David said ‘If I regard iniquity in my heart, the LORD will not hear me’. Isaiah wrote ‘But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear’.
Sin (Bro. Ken)
Sin flaunts its beauty before our eyes,
Deceitfully hiding its cruel lies.
Sin promises pleasures, but gives us pain,
Then offers us joys that will not remain.
It’s cost is high, and deep scars it leaves,
And a tangled web it surely weaves.
Bro. Ken Jacques
Faith Baptist Church of Newborn GA 