WASH ME AND I SHALL BE WHITER THAN SNOW

Pastor James J. Barker

Text: PSALMS 51:1-7



INTRODUCTION:


  1. The background for Psalm 32 and Psalm 51 is found in II Samuel, chapters 11 and 12.
  2. King David should have been on the battlefield with his army but instead he was walking up on his roof. He spotted a beautiful woman named Bath-sheba.
  3. He sent for her and then committed adultery with her. When he found out that she was going to have his baby, he got her husband drunk, and then had him killed. Naturally, this "displeased the Lord" (II Sam.11:27).
  4. For almost a year he tried to cover up this horrible sin (cf. Psalm 32:3,4).
  5. Finally, the Lord sent Nathan the prophet to see David (II Sam.12:1-12).
  6. David finally repented (II Sam.12:13; cf. Ps.32:5) and Psalm 51 is his great prayer of confession (cf. title of Psalm 51; Ps.51:1-3).
  7. I would like for us to study David’s prayer of confession today. His is a very personal prayer – note the personal pronouns "me" and "I" (Ps.51:1-3).
  8. We need to be honest with God when we pray. When we have sinned, we must confess it and ask for God’s forgiveness.
  1. HE WANTED HIS TRANSGRESSIONS BLOTTED OUT (vs. 1).
  1. "Transgression" means acts of rebellion, defying God by deliberately disobeying His laws (cf. Ex.20:13,14,17).
  2. To "transgress" means to step over God’s boundaries. God has put up certain boundaries in this life and any time man attempts to step over them, he must suffer the consequences.
  3. Transgression means rebellion, setting oneself against lawful authority (parents, teachers, the police, the pastor, etc.).
  4. David was overwhelmed with guilt and shame. He acknowledged that his transgressions (vs. 3). He wanted his transgressions blotted out (vs. 1).
  5. Commenting on this verse, Spurgeon wrote: "My revolts, my excesses, are all recorded against me; but, Lord, erase the lines. Draw thy pen through the register. Obliterate the record, though now it seems engraven in the rock for ever."
  6. He not only wanted his transgressions blotted out, he also wanted all his iniquities blotted out (vs. 9). He wanted to get things right with God.
  1. HE WANTED TO BE WASHED FROM HIS INIQUITY (vs. 2a).
  1. David first referred to his sin as a transgression. Next, he refers to his "iniquity" (vs. 2). "Iniquity" emphasizes the deviousness and crookedness of sin.
  2. Sir Walter Scott said: "O, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive."
  3. David wished to be washed "throughly" from his iniquity (vs. 2). He felt dirty and vile – he needed to be washed (cf. vs. 7).
  4. Samuel Smith said: "No toad is so vile and loathsome in the sight of man, as a sinner, stained and defiled with sin, is in the sight of God, till he be cleansed and washed from it in the blood of Christ."
  5. Man is born with a fallen sin nature (vs. 5; cf. Rom.5:12).
  6. And these sins will send a man to hell unless he repents of his sin and trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom.6:23).
  7. The great evangelist D. L. Moody was walking along North Clark Street in Chicago one evening over 100 years ago when a man grabbed his arm and aid: "Can I be saved tonight? The devil is coming to take me to hell at 1:00 tonight." Moody thought the man was sick, but he insisted that the devil had come and laid his hand upon him, and told him he might have till 1:00 a.m. He asked Moody, "Won’t you go up to my room and sit with me?" Moody gathered some friends and they went up to the man’s room. At 1:00 sharp the devils came and the man started screaming. D. L. Moody said that all the men in that room could not hold him. He cried out for mercy and then died.
  8. Only the blood of Christ can wash away our dirty sins. "But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin…If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (I John 1:7,9).
  9. After a man gets things right with God, God gives him "a clean heart" (vss. 10-17).
  1. HE WANTED TO BE CLEANSED FROM HIS SIN (vs. 2b).
  1. First, David asked God to blot out his transgressions (vs. 1). The picture is like that of a diary so foul that he begged God to erase it, to blot it out.
  2. Secondly, he asked God to wash him throughly from his iniquity (vs. 2a). The picture is like that of a filthy shirt which must be washed clean.
  3. And now thirdly, David asks God for cleansing (vs. 2b). He had a fatal disease called sin, which he needed to be cleansed from. The word used for "cleanse" is the same word used for when a leper was pronounced ceremonially clean. In the Bible, leprosy is a vivid picture of sin.
  4. In verse 7, David says, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean." Hyssop was a little shrub with which the blood and water of purification were applied for the cleansing of a leper (Lev.14:1-8).
  5. "To sin" means to miss the mark; to fail to meet God’s standards. Sin is degrading. Something happens to the sinner’s character; he becomes devious and crooked.
  6. Years ago, Pastor Rod Bell was in a debate with a homo and the sodomite kept referring to heterosexuals as "straight." Bro. Bell took note of that and said to the homo: "If we are all straight, what does that make you? You are all a bunch of crooks!"
  7. David was not that crooked but he was still contaminated with the pollution of sin. People today are obsessed with pollution (e.g. this recycling fanaticism), but the worse kind of pollution is SIN and there aren’t many people concerned about it.
  8. Filthy movies, topless bars, so-called "gay parades," pornography, drinking, drugs, rock music, rap music, abortion – this is the kind of pollution that is killing our country.
  9. David said: "My sin is ever before me" (vs. 3b). His sin haunted him. Perhaps he kept thinking of Uriah the Hittite. Like Banquo’s ghost haunting Macbeth, David could not get rid of his guilt. Like Lady Macbeth trying to wash Duncan’s blood off her hands, David was haunted by his crime.
  10. David demonstrated true repentance – he "acknowledged" his transgressions (vs. 3). His sorrow was not for the consequences of his sin, but for the sin itself.
  11. There can be no forgiveness without repentance. God wants "a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart" (vs. 17).
  12. During Yom Kippur. You might have seen the picture in the newspaper of the rabbi waving the chicken over his head. That is not genuine repentance!
  13. We see another important Biblical principle taught here – ultimately all sin is against God (vs. 4; cf. Gen.39:7-9).
  14. R.A. Torrey was witnessing to a man one time, and the man said to Torrey, "I’m an upright man. What do you have against me?" R.A. Torrey solemnly replied: "I charge you, Sir, with treason against the King of heaven."

CONCLUSION:
  1. Sin is deceptive. The Bible warns us: "But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin" (Heb.3:13).
  2. I remember awhile back a young man had a pet snake and the snake squeezed him to death – that’s the way sin is.
  3. I read an interesting story about a young lady with a pet raccoon. A friend of hers was a former zoo-keeper and warned her that in 24 months, raccoons go through a glandular change and attack people for no reason.
  4. She would not heed his warning but said, "It will be different for me. My little Bandit (her pet raccoon) is so cute and sweet, he would never hurt me."
  5. Three months later this lady had to go for plastic surgery after Bandit attacked her and nearly tore her face off. Sin is like that. But people think, "It will be different for me."

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