Sermon 3009. Our Champion
(No. 3009)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1906.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, IN THE YEAR 1861.
"And Samson lay till midnight, and arose at midnight, and took the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and wentaway with them, bar and all, and put them upon his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the hill that faces Hebron."Judges 16:3.
POOR Samson! We cannot say much about him as an example to Believers. We must hold him up in two lights-as a beacon and asa prodigy. He is a beacon to us all, for he shows us that no strength of body can suffice to deliver from weakness of mind.Here was a man whom no fellow man could overcome, but he lost his eyes through a woman-a man mighty enough to tear a lionlike a kid, yet, in due time, though himself stronger than a lion, he was bound with fetters of brass. When I think of theinfatuation of which Samson was the subject and remember that we are men of like passions with him, I can only, for myself,put up the prayer, "Lord, hold You me up, and I shall be safe," and urge you to do likewise.
And Samson is also a prodigy. He is more a wonder as a Believer than he is even as a man. It is marvelous that a man couldsmite thousands of Philistines with no better weapon than the jawbone of a newly-killed ass, but it is still more marvelousthat Samson should be a saint, ranked among those illustrious ones saved by faith, though such a sinner! The Apostle Paulhas put him among the worthies in the 11th Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews and Paul wrote by Inspiration-therefore therecan be no mistake about the fact that Samson was saved. Indeed, when I see his childlike faith, and note the way in whichhe dashed against the Philistines and smote them, hip and thigh, with a great slaughter-the way in which he cast aside allreckonings and probabilities and, in simple confidence in his God achieved the most tremendous feats of valor-when I see this,I cannot but wonder and admire!
The Old Testament biographies were never written for our imitation, but they were written for our instruction. Upon this onematter, what a volume of force there is in such lessons! "See," says God, "what faith can do? Here is a man, full of infirmities,a sorry fool, yet, through his childlike faith, he lives. 'The just shall live by faith.' He has many sad flaws and failings,but his heart is right towards his God. He does trust in the Lord and he does give himself up as a man consecrated to hisLord's service and, therefore, he is saved." I look upon Samson's case as a great wonder, put in Scripture for the encouragementof great sinners. If such a man as Samson, nevertheless, prevails by faith to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, so shall you andI! Though our characters may have been disfigured by many vices and we may have committed a multitude of sins, if we can buttrust Christ to save us, He will purge us with hyssop and we shall be clean! He will wash us and we shall be whiter than snow-andin our death we shall fall asleep in the arms of Sovereign Mercy to wake up in the likeness of Christ!
But now I am going to leave Samson alone, except as he may furnish us with a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. Samson, likemany other Old Testament heroes, was a type of our Lord. He is especially so in this case and I shall invite you to look atChrist rather than at Samson. First, come and behold our Champion at His work Then, let us go and survey the work when Hehas accomplished it And thirdly, let us enquire what use we can make of the work which He has performed.
I. Come with me, then, Brothers and Sisters, and LOOK AT OUR MIGHTY CHAMPION AT HIS WORK. You remember when our Samson, ourLord Jesus, came down to the Gaza of this world, 'twas love that brought Him. Love to a most unworthy object, for He lovedthe sinful church which had gone astray from Him many and many a
time. Yet He came from Heaven and left the ease and delights of His Father's palace to put Himself among the Philistines,the sons of sin and Satan here below!
It was rumored among men that the Lord of Glory was in the world and straightway they took counsel together how they shouldslay Him. Herod makes a clean sweep of all the children of two years old and under, that he may be sure to slay the newbornPrince. Afterwards, scribes and priests and lawyers hunt and hound Him. Satan tempts Him in the wilderness and provokes Himwhen in public. Death also pursues Him, for he has marked Him as his prey. At last, the time comes when the triple host ofthe Savior's foes has fairly surrounded Him, and shut Him in. They have dragged Him before Pilate. They have scourged Himon the pavement. They drag Him to the place called Calvary, while His blood drips upon the stones of Jerusalem's streets.They pierce His hands and His feet. They lift Him up, a spectacle of scorn and suffering and now, while dying in extreme pangs,and especially when He closes His eyes and cries out, "It is finished," sin, Satan and death all feel that they have the Championsafe! There He lies silently in the tomb. He who is to bruise the old serpent's head, is, Himself, bruised! O you who arethe world's great Deliverer-there You lie as dead as any stone! Surely Your foes have led You captive, O You mighty Samson!
He sleeps. But think not that He is unconscious of what is going on. He knows everything. He sleeps till the proper momentcomes and then our Samson awakes-and what happens now? He is in the tomb and His foes have set a guard and a seal that theymay keep Him there. Will any now help Him to escape out of their charge? Is there any man who will aid Him? No, there is none!If the Champion escapes, it must be by His own singlehanded valor! Will He make a clear way for Himself and come up from themidst of His foes? You know He will, my Brothers and Sisters, for the moment the third day comes, He touches the stone andit is rolled away! He has defeated death! He has pulled up the posts of the grave and taken away its gates and bars! As forsin, He treads that beneath His feet-He has utterly overthrown it! And Satan, too, lies broken beneath the heel that oncewas bruised! He has broken the old dragon's head and cut His power in pieces forever! Solitary and alone, His own arm bringssalvation unto Him and His righteousness sustains Him. I think I see Him now as He goes up that hill which is before Hebron-thehill of God. He bears upon His shoulders the uplifted gates of the grave-the tokens of His victory over death and Hell! Doorsand posts and bar and all, He bears them up to Heaven. In sacred triumph He drags His enemies behind Him. Sing to Him! Angels,praise Him in your hymns! Exalt Him, cherubim and seraphim! Our mightier Samson has gotten to Himself the victory and clearedthe road to Heaven and eternal life for all His people!
You know the story. I have told it poorly, but it is the most magnificent of all stories that ever were told! "Arms, and theman, I sing," said one of the great classic poets of old, but I can say, 'The Cross and the Christ, I sing." 'Tis my delightto tell of Him who espoused the cause of His people and, though for a while a captive, broke the green straps and fettersof brass and, having gained the victory for Himself, also liberated others, then goes, at the head of His emancipated people,along the way which He has opened-the new way which He leads to the right hand of God!
II. Let us go now, dear Brothers and Sisters, and calmly SURVEY THE WORK WHICH CHRIST HAS ACCOMPLISHED.
We will stand at the gates of old Gaza and see what the Champion has done. Those are ponderous hinges, and they must haveheld up huge doors. We will look at these doors, posts and this bar. Why, it is a mass of iron that ten men could hardly lift-andit might take 50 more to carry those huge doors! They were scarcely moved, even on their hinges, without the efforts of adozen men-and yet this one man carried them all and I read not that his shoulders were bent, or that he grew weary. Sevenmiles, at least, Samson carried that tremendous load, uphill all the way, too! Still he bore it all without staggering, nordo I find that he was faint as he was aforetime at Ramath-Lehi.
I will not linger upon Samson's exploits, rather would I lift up your thoughts to the great Captain of our salvation! Seewhat Christ has carried away. I said that He had three enemies. The three beset Him and He has achieved a threefold victoryover them!
There was death. My dear Friends, Christ, in being first overcome by death, made himself Conqueror over death and He has alsogiven us the victory, for, concerning death, we may truly say that Christ has not only opened the gates, but He has takenthem away-and not the gates only, but the very posts, and the bar and all! Christ "has abolished death and has brought lifeand immortality to light."
He has abolished it in this sense-in the first place, the curse of death is gone. Believers die, but they do not die for theirsins. "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures." We die, but it is not any longer as a punishment. It is thefruit of sin, but it is not the curse of sin that makes the Believer die. To other men, death is a curse-to the Believer,I may almost put it among his Covenant blessings, for to sleep in Jesus Christ is one of the greatest mercies that the Lordcan give to His believing people! The curse of death, then, being taken away, we may say that the posts are pulled up.
Christ has also taken away the after results of death, the soul's exposure to the Second Death. Unless Christ had redeemedus, death, indeed, would have been terrible, for it would have been the shore of the great Lake of Fire. When the wicked die,their punishment begins at once-and when they rise again, at the general resurrection, it is but to receive in their bodiesand in their souls the due reward of their sins! The sting of death is the Second Death-that which is to come afterwards-
"To die-to sleep-
To sleep! Perhaps to dream. Yes, there's the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come!"
said the world's poet-no, not what "dreams" may come, but what substantial pains, what dread miseries, what everlasting sorrowswill come! These are not for Christians. There is no Hell for you, Believer! Christ has taken away posts, and bar and all.Death is not to you any longer the gate of torment, but the gate of Paradise!
Moreover, Christ has not only taken away the curse and the after results of death, but from many of us He has taken away eventhe fear of death! He came on purpose to "deliver them, who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."There are not a few here who could conscientiously say that they do not dread death-no, but rather look forward to it withjoyful expectation! We have become so accustomed to think of our last hours that we die daily-and when the last hour shallarrive, we shall only say, "Our marriage day has come."-
"Welcome, sweet hour of full discharge! That sets my longing soul at large." We shall joyfully hail the summons to mount beyondthis land of woes, sighs and tears to be present with our God! The fear of death having been taken away, we may truly saythat Christ has taken away posts, bar and all.
Besides, Beloved, there is a sense in which it may be said that Christians never die at all. Jesus said to Martha, "He thatbelieves in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die." Believers donot die, they do but-
"Sleep in Jesus and are blessed."
But the main sense in which Christ has pulled up the posts of the gates of death is that He has brought in a glorious Resurrection.O Grave, you cannot hold your prisoners, for they must rise! O Death, your troops of worms may seem to devastate that fairland of human flesh and blood, but that body shall rise again blooming with more beauty than that with which it fell asleep!It shall rise from its bed of dust and silent clay to dwell in realms of everlasting day! Conceive the picture if you can!If you have imagination, let the scene now present itself before your eyes. Christ, the greater Samson, sleeping in the dominionsof Death-death boasting and glorifying itself that now it has conquered the Prince of Life! Christ waking, striding to thatgate, dashing it aside-taking it upon His shoulders, carrying it away and saying as He mounts to Heaven, "O Death, where isyour sting? O Grave, where is your victory?"
Another host which Christ had to defeat was the army of sin. Christ had come among sinners and sins beset Him round. Yoursins and my sins beleaguered the Savior till He became their captive. "In Him was no sin" yet sins "compassed Him about likebees." Sin was imputed to Him-the sins of all His people stood in His way to keep Him, as well as them, out of Heaven. WhenChrist was on the Cross, my Brothers and Sisters, he was looked upon by God as a sinner, though He never had been a sinner.And when in the grave, He could not rise until He was justified. Christ must be justified as well as His people. He was justifiednot as we are, but by His own act. We are not justified by acts of our own as He was. All the sin of the elect was laid uponChrist-He suffered its full penalty and so was justified. The token of His Justification lay in His Resurrection. Christ wasjustified by rising from the dead and in Him all His people were justified too. I may say, therefore, that all our sins stoodin the way of Christ's Resurrection-they were the great iron gate and they were the bar of brass that shut him out from Heaven.Doubtless, we might have thought that Christ would
be a prisoner forever under the troops of sin, but oh, see Him, my Brothers and Sisters! See how the mighty Conqueror, asHe bears our sins "in His own body on the tree," stands with unbroken bones beneath the enormous load, bearing-
"All that Incarnate God could bear,
With strength enough, but none to spare."
See how He takes those sins of ours upon His shoulders and carries them right up from His tomb and hurls them away into thedeep abyss of forgetfulness, where, if they are sought, they shall not be found any more forever! As for the sins of all God'speople, they are not partly taken away-they are as clean removed as ever the gates of Gaza were-posts, gates, bar and all!That is to say, every sin of God's people is forgiven-
"There's pardon for transgressions past, It matters not how black their cast! And, oh, my Soul, with wonder view, For sinsto come there's pardon too!"
Every sin that all the elect ever did commit, are now committing, or ever shall commit was taken away by Christ- taken uponHis shoulders in His great atoning Sacrifice and carried away! There is no sin in God's book against any of His people! Hesees no sin in Jacob, neither iniquity in Israel-they are justified in Christ forever.
Moreover, as the guilt of sin was taken away, the punishment of sin was consequently taken away, too. For the Christian thereis no stroke from God's angry hand. No, not so much as a single frown of punitive justice! The Believer may be chastised bya Father's hand, but God, the Judge of all, has nothing to say to the Christian, except, "I have absolved you: you are acquitted."For the Christian, there is no Hell, no penal death, much less any second death. He is completely freed from all the punishmentas well as the guilt of sin-and the power of sin is removed too. It may stand in our way to keep us in perpetual warfare,but, oh, my Brethren, sin is to us a conquered foe! There is no sin which a Christian cannot overcome if he will only relyupon his God to enable him to do so. They who wear their white robes in Heaven overcame through the blood of the Lamb-andyou and I may do the same. There is no lust too mighty, no besetting sin too strongly entrenched-we can drive these Canaanitesout though they have cities walled unto Heaven- we can pull their cities down and overcome them through the power of Christ!Believe, Christian, that your sin is virtually a dead thing. It may kick and struggle-there is force enough in it for that,but it is a dead thing! God has written condemnation across its brow. Christ has crucified it, "nailing it to His Cross."Go now and bury it forever, and the Lord help you to live to His praise! Oh, blessed be His name! Sin, with the guilt, thepower, the shame, the fear, the terror of it, is gone! Christ has taken posts, and bar and all up to the top of the hill!
Then there was a third enemy and he, also, has been destroyed-that was Satan. Our Savior's sufferings were not only an Atonementfor sin, but they were a conflict with Satan and a conquest over him. Satan is a defeated foe. The gates of Hell cannot prevailagainst the Church of Christ, but Christ has prevailed against the gates of Hell! As for Satan, the posts and bar and allhave been plucked up from his citadel in this sense-that Satan has now no reigning power over Believers. He may bark at uslike a dog and he may go about like a roaring lion, but to rend and to devour us are not in his power. There is a chain aboutthe devil's neck and he can only go as far as God likes, but no further. He could not tempt Job without first asking God'spermission and he cannot tempt you without first getting God's permission. There is a permit needed before the devil daresso much as look on a Believer! And so, being under Divine permission, he will not be allowed to tempt us above what we areable to bear.
Moreover, the exceeding terror of Satan is also taken away. A Man has met Apollyon foot to foot and overcome him. That Manin death triumphed over Satan-so may you and I. The prestige of the old enemy is gone. The dragon's head has been broken andyou and I need not fear to fight with a broken-headed adversary! When I read John Bunyan's description of Christian's fightwith Apollyon, I am struck with the beauty and truth of the description, but I cannot help thinking, "If Christian had butknown how thoroughly Apollyon had been thrashed in days gone by, by his Master, he would have thrown that in his face andmade short work of him." Never encounter Satan without recollecting that great victory that Christ achieved on the tree! Donot be afraid, Christian, of Satan's devices or threats. Be on your watch-tower against him. Strive against him, but fearhim not. Resist him, being bold in the faith, for it is not in his power to keep the feeblest saint out of Heaven, for allthe gates which he has put up to impede our march have been taken away, posts, bar and all-and our God, the Lord, has gottento Himself the victory over all the hosts of Hell!
III. We will now see HOW WE CAN USE THIS VICTORY.
Surely there is some comfort here-comfort for you, dear Friend, over yonder. You have a desire to be saved. God has impressedyou with a deep sense of sin. The very strongest wish of your soul is that you might have peace with God. But you think thereare so many difficulties in the way-Satan, your sins, and I know not what. Beloved, let me tell you, in God's name, thereis no difficulty whatever in the way except in your own heart, for Christ has taken away the gates of Gaza-posts, bar andall! Mary Magdalene said to the other Mary, or the women said to one another, when they went to the sepulcher, "Who shallroll away the stone for us?" That is what you are saying. And when they came to the place, the stone was rolled away! Thatis your case, too, poor troubled conscience-the stone is rolled away! What? You cannot believe it? Here is God's testimonyfor it-"Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be aswool." You need an atonement for your sins, do you? "It is finished." You need someone to speak for you. "He is able to saveunto the uttermost, seeing He ever lives to make intercession for us." Can you believe in the mercy of God in Christ and restyour poor guilty soul upon the merit of His doing and the virtue of His dying? If you can, God is reconciled to you! Theremay have been great mountains between you and God, but they are all gone. There may have been the Red Sea of your sins rollingbetween you and your Father. That Red Sea is dried up. I tell you, Soul, if you believes in Christ Jesus, not only is therea way of access between your soul and God, but there is a clear way! You remember, when Christ died, the veil of the Templewas torn in two. There was not a little slit for sinners to creep through, but it was ripped in two from the top to the bottom,so that big sinners might come in the same way as when Samson pulled up gates, posts, bar and all! There was a clear way outinto the country for all who were locked up in the town. Prisoner, the prison doors are open! Captive, loose the bonds onyour neck-be free! I sound the trumpet of jubilee! Bond-slaves, Christ has redeemed you! You who have sold-
"Your heritage for nought,
Shall have it back unbought,
The gift of Jesus'love!"
The Lord has anointed His Son Jesus "to preach deliverance to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that arebound." Trust Him! May His mercy lead you to trust Him now, for there is really nothing to prevent your salvation if you restin Him. Between your soul and God, I tell you, there is no dividing wall. "He is our peace, who has made both one...and cameand preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were near." May these precious words be treasured up by suchas need them! Some of you need them. May the Spirit of God put them into your hearts and lay them up there, that you may findcomfort in Christ!
But is there not something more here? Is there not here a ground of exhortation to Christians Brothers and Sisters, have notsome of you been tolerating some sin-some besetting sin which you think you cannot overcome? You would be more holy, but thethought that you are not able to overcome it makes your arm helpless against your own sin. So you think that Christ has leftthe posts, do you? I tell you, no! "Whoever is born of God does not commit sin." He that is born of God sins not with allowance.He sins not with constancy and it is in his power, with the Holy Spirit's aid, to overcome his sin! And it is his duty, aswell as his privilege, to go to war against the stoutest of his corruptions till he shall tread them under foot. Now, willyou believe, Brothers and Sisters, that in the blood of Christ and in the water that flowed with it from His side, there isa Sovereign virtue to kill your sins? There is nothing standing between you and the pardon of your sins but your unbelief-andif you will but shake that off, you shall march triumphantly through the gate of Glory!
Once more and I am through. Is not this an incentive for us, who profess to be servants of Christ, to go out and fight withthe world and overcome it for Christ Brothers and Sisters, where Jesus leads us, it needs not much courage for us to follow."The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof." Let us go and take it for Him! Nations that sit in darkness shall seea great light. Satan may have locked up the world with bigotry, with idolatry and with superstition, as with posts and bars,but the Kingdom is the Lord's! And if we will but awaken ourselves to preach the Word, we shall find that the Breaker hasgone up before us and broken and torn away the gates, posts, and bar and all-and we have nothing to do but to enjoy an earlyvictory. God help us to do so!
And now, as we come to the Lord's Table, let us have before us this vision of our glorious Samson achieving His mighty victory!And while we weep for sin, let us praise His superlative power and love that have worked such marvels for us. The Lord giveus to enjoy His Presence at His table, and He shall have the praise! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON:
PSALM 51.
A Psalm of David, when Nathan the Prophet came to him and rebuked him, in the name of God, for his great sin with Bathsheba.
Verse 1. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your loving kindness: according unto the multitude of Your tender merciesblot out my transgressions. This is not a Psalm to be sung to the joyous music of the harp and the viol, but rather to theminor music of sighs, groans and tears. You must have the picture of weeping David before your mind's eye if you would reallyget to the heart and soul of his language here. There is only one thing on the Psalmist's heart, and that is the consciousnessof his great sin which seemed to swallow up everything else. He feels that he must have that sin forgiven-he cannot rest untilhe knows that it is pardoned.
Note how he makes his appeal to the loving kindness and tender mercies of God. A sinner under a sense of sin has a keen eyefor the mercy of God, for he knows that there is his only hope and, therefore, he looks for it as a mariner at sea looks fora star! He will not allow even one to escape his observation if there is but one visible between the rifts of the clouds.David urges the most powerful plea with God-"According to Your loving kindness; according unto the multitude of Your tendermercies blot out my transgressions."
2. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For he loathes it. It is abominable in his sight. Hiswhole spirit seems sickened at the very recollection of it. He not merely prays, "Wash me," but, "'Wash me thoroughly." Washme thoroughly, not only from sin, but from the inequity of it, the wrongdoing of it, that wherein it was essentially sin andwhen You have washed me, cleanse me, for, perhaps, washing will not be enough-there may need a cleansing by fire. Lord cleanseme anyway, only cleanse me from my sin."
3. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is always before me. He had tried to forget it, but he could not, for ithaunted him wherever he went. He had put it behind his back, but now it had gotten in front of his eyes. It seemed as if itwere painted on his eyeballs and he could not see without seeing through his sin. This is how God makes men repent-how Hemakes sin to be like gall and wormwood to them.
4. Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight that You might be justified when You speak, andbe clear when You judge. David had sinned against a great many others beside God, but the virus, the very poison of the sin,seemed to him to lie in this-that he had sinned against his God. The unregenerate usually take no account of that, they carenothing about sinning against God. Offending men, doing some injury to their fellow creatures, may cause them trouble, butas for offending God they snap their fingers at that and count it to be something not worth even thinking of! But when a manis really awakened by Divine Grace, he sees that sin is an attack upon God, an offense against God's very Nature and thisbecomes the heaviest burden to him. Do you know what this experience means, dear Friends?
5. Behold, I was shaped in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. David has got further than seeing sin upon him-hesees that he is, himself, sinfulness-that his nature, his very being, is steeped and dyed in sin! The evil is not merely thatyou have sinned, but that you are a sinner Sin would never come out of you if it were not in you. And, oh, what a mine ofsin, what a bottomless deep of sin there is in human nature! No wonder that it bursts forth as it does. As the volcano isbut the index of a mighty seething ocean of devouring flame within the heart of the earth, so any one sin is only a tokenof far greater sinfulness that seethes and boils within the cauldron of our nature! "Behold, I was shaped in iniquity; andin sin did my mother conceive me."
6. Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts. "Alas, O Lord, it is not there! I have looked there, but have seen only sin.It is not truth, but the reverse of truth that I find in my inward parts! Lord, You will never have what You desire to seein me unless You put Your hand to the work."
6. And in the hidden part You shall make me to know wisdom. Yes, God can teach us. Even those hidden parts which no humanteaching can reach, God can touch and there He can make us to know wisdom.
7. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. "Sprinkle the blood of Atonement upon me, give me a sacrificial cleansing,and then I shall be clean."
7. Wash me, andI shallbe whiter than snow. To my mind, this is a wonderful expression of faith. I do not know of any Scripturethat seems more full of holy confidence than this is. David had such a deep sense of his sinfulness that it was a wonderfulthing that he should have, side by side with it, such a perfect confidence in the power of God to cleanse him! It is easyenough to say, "I shall be whiter than snow," when we do not realize what scarlet sinners we are, but when the crimson isbefore us and we are startled by it, it requires a real and living faith to be able to say to God, "Wash me, and I shall bewhiter than snow."
8. Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which You have broken may rejoice. God has a way of making our sins comehome to us like the blows of great bone-breaking hammers. I suppose that no pain can be much worse than that of a broken bone,but God can make the pain of sin in the conscience to be as continuous and as intense as that of broken bones and then, blessedbe His name, He knows how to heal the bones which He has broken and to make each broken bone to sing and rejoice. Whereasit groaned before, he can give it a new power and make that very bone to be a mouth out of which shall come praise to God!
9. Hide Your face from my sins. "Lord, look no more at them. Do not hide Your face from me, but hide it from my sins!"-
"O You that hears when sinners cry, Though all my crimes before You lie, Behold them not with angry look, But blot their memoryfrom Your book!"
9. And blot out all my iniquities. "Do not let them be recorded any longer, O Lord! Run Your pen through them! Let them notstand against me in Your books of remembrance!"
10. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Here the truly quickened man speaks. It is notsalvation from punishment he asks for, but salvation from the power of sin. He wants a new heart. He wants to have removedfrom him the defiling power of sin over his affections. "Create in me a clean heart, O God." It will need the Creator to doit. Only the God who made the world can make me what I ought to be. Great Creator, put Your hand to this work-'Create in mea clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.'"
11. Cast me not away from Your Presence; and take not Your Holy Spirit from me. "O Lord, do not thrust me into a dungeon andsay, 'You shall never be a favored child of Mine again.' 'Take not Your Holy Spirit from me. That I should dread beyond everythingelse!"
12. Restore unto me the joy of Your salvation; and uphold me with Your free Spirit. "Lord, I shall slip again unless You holdme up, and, since You cannot trust Your little child by himself, come and teach me how to walk."
13. Then will I teach transgressors Your ways; and sinners shall be converted unto You. "If You will but teach me, and saveme, and cleanse me, then I will tell to others what great things You have done for me. I will tell out the story of Your lovethat others, also, may prove its power."
14. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, You God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness.Thiswas a wonderful prayer, but it was not wonderful that David should get relief when he called his sin by its right name. Anotherman, in his place, might have said, "I did not kill Uriah. It is true that I had him put where he was likely to be slain,but then the sword devours one as well as another." That was the way that David did hypocritically talk at first-but now thathis conscience has been awakened, he confesses that he is a murderer- "Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God."
15. 16. O Lord open You my lips: and my mouth shall show forth Your praise. For You desire not sacrifice; else would I giveit: You delight not in burnt offering. How wonderfully a true sense of sin puts a man on the track of Evangelical doctrine!David could see that sin was too grievous a thing for the blood of sheep and bulls to wash it away, and though he did notdespise the ritual which God had ordained, he looked beyond it to something greater and better of which it was but a type.
17, 18. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. Do good inYour good pleasure unto Zion: build You the walls of Jerusalem. This is a blessed end to David's mournful Psalm. He felt thathis sin had a tendency to do injury to the Church of God-that he had, in fact, pulled down the towers of Zion by his iniquity,so he prays "Build You the walls of Jerusalem."
19. Then shall You be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shallthey offer bullocks upon Your altar.