A Prayer Of Repentance

Psalm 51

Psalm 51 is aptly titled “A Prayer of Repentance” in the NKJV. Written by King David, it is confessing his sins to God and pleading for mercy. But why did he need to do this? At the height of his power, David became infatuated with the wife of one of his military officers, whose name was Bathsheba, and made her pregnant. He really needed to do something about the problem that he had imposed upon her, so he decided that he would solve his problem by arranging for her husband to lead a suicide squad into the midst of a battle, and by so doing, her husband was killed. Then conveniently forgetting his intrigue, David proceeded to marry his officer’s pregnant wife.

So it seems like the mighty King David got away with it. But there was one problem. He couldn’t get rid of the guilt. Like trying to scrub a blood stain out of a white shirt, he couldn’t scrub that guilt from his heart. He came to the point where he was obsessed with his sin. And out of that obsession, he writes Psalm 51.

Catholic or Christadelphian

Now before we go into the Psalm a little deeper, I’d like to take you back to when I was five years old. We were living in Melbourne, Australia and my father was still a Catholic. He would sometimes take us along to Catholic Sunday School or Catholic Mass. Being a Catholic all his life, my father finally started taking a deeper look into his Bible, and began to realize there were some discrepancies with what he was reading, and what he was hearing at Mass.

He approached the Catholic priest and started asking questions, to which he either got a shrug, or “it’s all part of the great mystery” or “because it’s been like that for thousands of years”. A lot of people would be happy with those answers, but he wasn’t. He started searching and came across an advertisement in the local newspaper for a Christadelphian Bible Talk, to which the public was welcome to attend. So off he went, down to the nearby hall, and listened. He decided to go again, and again, and while attending he met some lifelong friends who would soon become his brothers and sisters in Christ.

Eventually, my father dragged us along. I remember it was different to Catholic Mass. Less kneeling, less of the chant-like responses, less of the repetitive prayer. But there’s one thing I noticed there was a lot more of — there was a lot more quiet time.

As a young child with a super short attention span, I didn’t really understand this. Especially during the memorial service. I saw my father eat the bread, and just bend forward with this eyes closed for what seemed like an eternity. Then he would do the same after the wine. What was he thinking about? Was he praying? After being raised Catholic I guess I recognized this as some kind of ritual just as they have in Catholic Mass. Maybe he was saying three “Hail Mary’s” and four “Our Fathers”. Maybe he was thinking about what he needs to pick up on the way home; bread, eggs and milk. What was he thinking?

It wasn’t until many years later that it clicked and the reading of 1 Corinthians 11, which I had heard over and over again on Sundays, was finally understood. Let’s turn to that now and we’ll have a read.

“Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body” (1 Cor 11:27-29).

And here we see in verse 28 exactly what happens. Let a man examine himself. Let a man search his heart. And we think of David, and the sin that was eating away at this heart. He came to a point where he examined himself. He saw that he was an unworthy sinner. He pleaded and begged for mercy, for his sin to be forgiven and washed clean.

Back to Psalm 51

Let’s take a deeper look at this process that David went through in Psalm 51:

“Have mercy upon me, O God, According to Your loving kindness; According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, And cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, And my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, And done this evil in Your sight — That You may be found just when You speak, And blameless when You judge” (Psa 51:1-4).

David starts off by pleading for mercy. We only plead for mercy when we know we’re guilty. It’s as if we’re in a court of law. We don’t plead for mercy if we’re pleading not guilty to the charges before us. We plead for mercy after the jury has decided and found us guilty. We know we deserve judgement. By pleading for mercy, we’re saying “Please God, don’t give me what I deserve”. Because Paul tells us what we deserve: “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 6:23).

But consider more words of David: “He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him” (Psa 103:10-11).

We’ve all got to be so happy for that, that God hasn’t dealt with us according to our sins. He hasn’t given us what we really deserve. But instead, David tells here of God’s massive mercy toward those who follow Him.

Jumping back to Psa 51:2: “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, And cleanse me from my sin”.

David pleads to God to be washed clean of his sin. He wants all the uncleanness, all the evil, all the sin washed away, so he can be clean again. It’s always such a nice analogy that parallels with baptism. To be made new, to do away with the old, to be purified. As Jesus said:

“He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, do you wash my feet?’ Jesus answered him, ‘What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.’ Peter said to him, ‘You shall never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered him, ‘If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.’ Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!’ Jesus said to him, ‘The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean’ ” (John 13:6-10).

Look at that last verse again: “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean”. Here we have none other than Jesus Christ himself, telling the disciples that although they may have been washed before, they still need to be washed again.

It’s a powerful lesson we can get out of this. That we’ve been baptized, we’ve been washed completely clean, but our feet still get dirty. We still get ourselves, from time to time, dirty with sin. We still need our hearts to be washed clean. That’s why King David, “a man after God’s own heart”, still appeals to be washed clean. Psa 51:7 echoes this: “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow”. And again, David says: “For I acknowledge my transgressions, And my sin is always before me” (Psa 51:3).

David acknowledged that he did this. Not his advisors, not his colleagues, not his officials. He’s not trying to shift the blame here onto someone else. Notice as well that this is another great verse for disproving the existence of a supernatural devil. Does he say the devil made him do it? No, not at all. He puts his own hand up and says, “Yes, — it was me”.

David could have put his sin back on God: he could have said “God, why’d You let me get into this mess to start with? Why didn’t You intervene? Technically this is Your fault for not stopping me, or even for putting Bathsheba on the rooftop to start with”. But no, he never says this. He knows he did the wrong thing. He confesses and takes full responsibility.

“Against You, You only, have I sinned, And done this evil in Your sight — That You may be found just when You speak, And blameless when You judge” (Psa 51:4).

It’s really just David saying: “You know what God? I clear you of all of this. It’s my fault and I’ve committed it against you. I have sinned. You are justified. You are clear. I don’t hold you responsible. It’s my sin.”

So here we see that Psa 51:1-4 really does give us a good summary of a solid process of confession and repentance. It shows us that when we come before our creator and take a good look at ourselves, examining ourselves, we recognize that we are guilty and need to plead for mercy. That we really do deserve judgement, that we need to be washed clean in order to move on, and that we need to take ownership of our sin. It’s such a great insight into confession, when we lay our sins before God.

So now we’ve come to a point, just as David did, and we’ve laid it all on the table before God. We’ve asked for his undeserved mercy, his forgiveness to wash us clean. But where do we go from here? Well I think there was a good reason that Jesus called John the Baptist great. And I believe it is, in part, because of his preaching of repentance. The message of “changing your ways” was no doubt screamed by John in the wilderness. It’s exactly what Christ and his Father want of us. We’ve confessed, we’ve laid it all before Him, but we need to change our ways.

One example

I remember teaching in Australia, for three years I taught third grade children. As young children would do, they’d often get into fights in the playground, then come running up to me while I was supervising. One day a little boy named Jack ran up to me and cried, “Mr. Boyle, Tom just hit me on my arm!” with tears streaming down his face. I’d walk over to Tom, with Jack alongside, and I’d look Tom in the face and say, “Tom, did you hit Jack on the arm?” He said he did; he confessed. “Well, what do you say?” He sheepishly looked over to Jack, “Sorry Jack.” Now at that point, I could have left it at that and they would have gone on their merry way. But I wanted to make sure the message hit home. I’d always ask the offending child, “But what does sorry mean?” I usually got a shrug, or just “well it means I’m sorry I hit him.” “But what else does it mean? Does it mean you can say sorry and then go and hit him again and just say sorry again?” “Well, no. It means I won’t do it again”.

This little bit of extra counselling seemed to help them understand what it truly means to be sorry. As adults, as brothers and sisters in Christ, we can learn lessons from that too; we can’t just say sorry to others as a “get-out-of-jail” pass, then go and commit the same crime. This is the Gospel’s message of repentance. Say sorry, but mean it. Don’t go doing it again.

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psa 51:10).

It’s David appeal that he needs a new attitude, a new heart. To be made clean and no longer commit the sin he now finds so appalling.

When we prepare ourselves for the memorial service of our Lord, to examine ourselves before we partake of the bread and the wine and remember his sacrifice for us. As we do this, let us, like David, plead to God for mercy for our sins. Let us take ownership of them, let us ask to be washed clean and to change our ways. We need to say sorry and really mean it. There’s sin in my life. There’s sin in all of our lives. It could be lying, cheating, stealing, and lusting after things in the world, failing to pray or read the Bible, selfishness, pride, or overindulgence. It could be a few things. So let’s take a moment, before our master and creator, to consider our sin, to consider God and recognize, just like David did, that we need him, now more than ever. We can’t do this on our own anymore. We can’t keep stockpiling sin and guilt and think we’re fine. Let’s confess, let’s repent.

When we confess, when we repent, when we are forgiven, we are to thank God for this incredible gift of forgiveness. Let’s turn to Psalm 32, where we find David giving thanks for this astonishing blessing of forgiveness.

“For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer” (Psa 32:3-4).

This guilt he had, of his sins, had really sucked the life out of him. And in reading on we find a confession:

“I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin” (Psa 32:5).

At this point he could have stopped and walked away. I’ve felt guilt, I’ve confessed, and you’ve forgiven me. But next David shows his appreciation for such mercy.

“Therefore let everyone who is godly o_ffer prayer to you at a time when you may be found; surely in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him. You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance” (Psa 32:6-7).

So we should remember to give praise to our Lord who has undeservedly, mercifully forgiven us, preserved us, delivered us.

I’d like to finish with a really nice passage from Micah, just to remind us of this undeserving mercy that God actually delights in providing us:

“Who is a God like You, Pardoning iniquity And passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He does not retain His anger forever, Because He delights in mercy. He will again have compassion on us, And will subdue our iniquities” (Mic 7:18-19).

God will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.