Psalm 51: The Honest Sinner’s Psalm! 1. The Holy Lord God hates all sin! Psalm 51:1

 Text: “Have mercy upon me, O God, according unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.”

Psalm 51:1.

          “Behold (look deeply, and fully understand), the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither is His ear heavy, that it cannot hear: but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear.”

Isaiah 59:1-2.

Good morning, honest-about-sin Christian!  The fact that you have been genuinely redeemed from sin by the Blood of Christ, and been born again of His Spirit – compels you and I to be totally honest about the sins we NOW commit daily.  If we were not genuinely saved by God’s grace, we could perhaps delude ourselves about our daily sins.  However, praise God, this is not the case with genuine Christian believers – our faith is in a pure and Holy Lord Jesus; a Holy and Heavenly Father Who detests every sin; and in God the Spirit Who is defined intrinsically as God the Holy Spirit – and therefore cannot abide the presence of our sin. 

How we Spiritually regenerate, Bible-believing, Christians honestly recognise, and deal with the sins we naturally commit daily can, in fact, be a proof positive that we are Eternally saved!

Definition of SIN: Any state, act, thought, word, or deed that comes, in any miniscule degree, short, below, less than, the impeccable standard of the true Holiness of God, as clearly manifested in the incarnate God Himself – Jesus Christ. 

Holiness is a state of Divine Perfection that fallen mankind can never, through human effort, attain – except by faith in Christ Jesus, and His full Atonement Sacrifice on Calvary’s Cross.  Such vital faith is, at all times, “By grace, through faith... the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.”

“Now we know that what things so ever the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world might become guilty before God.” (Romans 3:19)

“But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (i.e. the impeccable righteousness of God the Son, Christ Jesus, is ‘the glory of God’).”  (Romans 3:21-23)

All mankind, therefore, born in Adam’s fallen image, are born natural sinners, and as such, born guilty under God’s Curse against sin; and on our way to an Eternal sinner’s Hell.

“And Adam lived (after the fall from God’s grace) an hundred and thirty years, and begat (fathered) a son in his own likeness, after his image (fallen!); and called his name Seth.  And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters.”  (Genesis 5:3-4)

“Behold (look, and fully understand), I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.”  (Psalm 51:5)

“This Psalm is the brightest gem in the whole Book and contains instruction so large, and doctrine so precious, that the tongue of angels could not do justice to the full development.”  (Victorinus Strigelius 1524-1569)

When we are called of God, through hearing with our hearts the Gospel message of Salvation in Christ, we are Spiritually regenerated, born again, by God the Spirit, and Eternally saved. From that time,  we who are born again must seek to be in fellowship with our Holy Lord God Who has saved us; and that necessitates our seeking to be sanctified, progressively, from the sins we commit daily as natural born sinners.  God cannot abide sin!  It comes between us and God; separates us from full and close fellowship with Him, because He is completely pure and ultimately Holy.

“Behold (look deeply, and fully understand), the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither is His ear heavy, that it cannot hear: but you iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear.”    (Isaiah 59:1-2)

Close fellowship with our Holy Lord God is what the Psalmist, the anointed king David, deeply desired, following his gross sins of adultery and murder, as recorded in 2 Samuel, chapter 11.  Without renewed repentance from sin, confession of sin to God; and fresh sanctification – David could never ever seek to come into the Presence of our Holy Lord God.  God closes His Holy eyes to the vileness of our sin, and will not hear us, nor fellowship with us, unless we seek true forgiveness and fresh sanctification from all our sins.

“Thou (God Almighty) are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity...”  (Habakkuk 1:13)

Thus, the Psalmist David’s Psalm of true repentance; and craving for renewed sanctification.

Verse 1. “Have mercy upon me, O God.  He appeals at once to the mercy of God, even before he mentions his sin.  The sight of mercy is good for eyes that are sore with penitential weeping.  Pardon of sin must ever be  an act of pure mercy, and therefore to that attribute the awakened sinner flies.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 237)

Verse 1. “O God. I dare not say, ‘My God’, for that were presumption.  I have lost Thee by sin, I have alienated myself from Thee by following the enemy, and therefore am unclean.  I dare not approach Thee, but standing afar off and lifting up my voice with great devotion and contrition of heart, I cry and say, ‘Have mercy upon me, O God.’” (‘A Commentary on the Seven Penitential Psalms’, by A.P. Forbes (1857)

Verse 1. “Blot out my transgressions. When you and I pray this prayer, we use inspired Scripture to give our prayer God’s approval from His own Word. “I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.”     (Isaiah 43:25)  The Lord cannot refuse His own Word, from the mouths of His own people.

Thought: Genuine Christians sin every day!  Genuine Christians repent, and seek fresh sanctification from sin every night!  In Christ, God’s mercy is always given.

3. The Sifting of the Reprobate Tares Psalm 50:16-23

Text: “But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare My statutes, or that thou shouldest take My Covenant in thy mouth?  Seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest My Words behind thee?

Psalm 50:16-17. 

Good morning, evangelistic Christian!  Having been Divinely enlightened by God the Holy Spirit, as to the doom that awaits all unbelievers; all adherents to false religion – all, in fact, who know not that true Eternal Salvation can only be found in the Person of Christ Jesus, and in His fully finished Atonement Sacrifice at Calvary’s Cross – you and I have a heavy heart of compassion for those that are currently in a state of non-regeneracy, all currently balancing on the edge of a bottomless, Christ-rejecter’s abyss.

Thus, we are deeply compelled to preach/teach the true Gospel message of Salvation in Christ, that the elect of God might hear, receive faith in the hearing, and, by God’s grace, be brought out of darkness and into the Light of Christ.

“Neither is there Salvation in any other: for there is none other name under Heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”  (Acts 4:12)

“Jesus saith unto him (Thomas), I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.”  (John 14:6)

However, one thing must be kept very clear in our own minds, sincere evangelistic Christian: there are some, God’s selected people, that will hear and receive the Gospel of Christ Jesus, Crucified for our sins and be saved, but there are many more others that will not hear, and certainly never receive, Salvation in the Gospel message we preach/teach.  This is merely a fact of Scripture.  Hell will eventually be full of those who rejected Christ Jesus.

Reprobate (rejected by God) tares can never ever grow to be Spiritual fruit. 

“And He (the Lord God) said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.  Make the heart (inner being) of this people (reprobates) fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.”  (Isaiah 6:9-10)

“But unto the wicked (rejected of God) God saith, What hast thou to do to declare My statutes, or that thou shouldest take My Covenant in thy mouth?  Seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest My Words behind thee.”  (Psalm 50:16-17)

Verse 16.  “But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare My statutes? You violate openly My moral law, and yet are great sticklers for My ceremonial commands! What have you to do with them?  What interest can you have in them?  Do you dare to teach My law to others and profane it yourselves?  What impudence, what blasphemy is this!  You count up your holy days, you contend for rituals, you fight for externals, and yet the weightier matters of the law ye despise!  Ye blind guides, ye strain out gnats and swallow camels; your hypocrisy is written on your foreheads and manifest to all.”  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 233)

On this Easter Sunday as I am writing this piece, I am totally frustrated.  I see so very many people; people that profess to be Protestant Christian believers; yet seem to actually know little about God’s way of Salvation; sound Bible doctrine; and increasingly run headlong into fellowship with the gross religious errors of Rome.  Professing Protestant, protest now!  Evangelical Pastors, get back to obeying Bible doctrine, and touch not the unclean thing!

“The Wicked. By whom are meant, not openly profane sinners; but men under a profession of religion, and indeed who were teachers of others, as appears from the following expostulations with them: the Scribes, Pharisees, and doctors among the Jews, are designed, and so Kimchi interprets it of their wise men, who learnt and taught the law, but did not act according to it.”  (John Gill 1697-1771)

Verse 16. “Or that thou shouldest take My Covenant in thy mouth.  How many Protestant Ministers, that have been ordained to office under the Westminster Confession of Faith, and vowed to uphold it – now, in this apostate 21^st Century, not only desire to recognise Roman Catholicism as Christian, but run headlong to involve themselves, and their church groups, in ecumenical fellowship gatherings with Rome and its gross darkness!  The Lord God’s instructions on this matter are very clear:

“And what concord hath Christ with Belial?  Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?  And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?  For ye are the temple of the Living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.  WHEREFORE (a Divine conclusion) come ye out from among them (the wheat from the tares), and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”  (2 Corinthians 6:15-18)

“We need the grace of the doctrines as much as the doctrines of grace, and without it an apostle is but a Judas, and a fair-spoken professor is an errant enemy of the Cross of Christ.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 233)

Professing Christians today despise Scriptural instruction, and quickly alienate Bible-believing Preachers/Teachers who are proficient in God’s Word and in doctrinal purity.

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned into fables.”  (2 Timothy 4:3-4)

The author is convinced that these times, here prophesied by Paul to Timothy, have arrived.  We are currently seeing with our own eyes, ‘The Great Falling Away’ from faith. “...Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8)

In part two of this exposition of Psalm 50: we learned that God’s elect people are being sifted for soundness of faith in Christ.  In this section, three, of the exposition we can clearly recognise the sifting of the reprobate tares – that increasing multitude of false professors, who will in fact, make up the spurious religious body called The Scarlet Woman in the book of Revelation, when the end comes.  (Revelation 17:1-18)   Christian, take note!

Thought: “...To him that ordereth his conversation (entire life/beliefs) aright will I show the Salvation of God.” (Psalm 50:23)   “...Thy Word is truth.” (John 17:17

2. The Sifting of the Elect Wheat Psalm 50:5-15

Text: “Gather My saints together unto Me; those that have made a Covenant with Me by sacrifice.  And the Heavens shall declare his/her righteousness: for God is judge Himself.”

Psalm 50:5-6.

Good morning, elect Christian!  You are a genuine, Bible-believing, and born again (Spiritually regenerate, alive) Christian because the Lord God Almighty Himself has made you so.  Of ourselves, of our human will; of any human decision we have ever been called to make, or have made ourselves – we are NOTHING.  As the prophet Jonah cried out from the belly of the great fish, “Salvation is of the Lord!”  (Jonah 2:9)

If it is not, then you and I are not saved!  Check it out, professing Christian!  Don’t take my worthless word on such a vital matter of theological learning – take God’s inspired Word as your final Authority on all your beliefs and practice.

“Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in My Name, He may give it you.”  (John 15:16)

If you and I are truly ‘born again’, Spiritually regenerated from being a ‘dead spirit’ to be Eternally alive in Christ Jesus – it is the Lord God Almighty Who has performed this miracle of Divine Regeneration.  If we are not saved by God alone, we are not saved at all! (See the doctrine of Regeneration on our website www.ulsterchristians.org )

“But as many as received Him (Christ Jesus), to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name: which were born, not of blood (human procreation), nor of the will of the flesh (human will), nor of the will of man (man’s decision), but of God.”  (John 1:12-13)

The true, born again, Bible-believing, and Christ serving Christian is CREATED by God from being a dead, useless, spirit, to be a living, God-worshipping and honouring ‘...creature in Christ...’  Check it out from Holy Scriptures if this fact be true, beloved reader.

“For by grace (God’s given grace) are ye saved through faith (God-given faith); and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.  FOR (a conclusion) we are His workmanship, CREATED in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”  (Ephesians 2:8-10)

When the Lord God saves us, He creates us to be living spirits that are, for the first time in our naturally fallen lives, Spiritually alive and able to communicate with our Creator Lord God – a wonderful gift of Adam’s creation that was lost when Adam/Eve fell from grace through disobedience in Eden’s Garden. 

What had been Created by God to be Supernatural, became merely natural, with God’s curse upon them and us because of their original sin.  That is why the Living Lord God must intervene and by the Divine power of His Spirit, REGENERATE the dead spirit we are born with, and create us as ‘...new creatures in Christ...’ Hallelujah!  (Genesis 3:)

“Therefore (a conclusion) if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things (a dead, natural spirit) are passed away; behold (look, and fully understand) all things are become new.  And all things are of God, Who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation (the Gospel of Christ Crucified for sinners); to wit that God was in Christ, reconciling the world (the elect from all corners of the world) unto Himself, not imputing (putting to their account) their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation (the Gospel message).” (2 Corinthians 5:17-19)

Verse 5. “Gather My saints together unto Me. Go, ye swift-winged messengers, and separate the precious from the vile.  Gather out the wheat of the Heavenly garner.  Let the long-scattered, but elect people, known by My separating grace to be My sanctified ones, be now assembled in one place.  All are not all saints who seem to be so – a severance must be made; therefore let all who profess to be saints be gathered before My throne of judgment, and let them hear the Word which will search and try the whole, that the false may be convicted and the true revealed.”  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 231)

True, Bible-believing Christians have no anxiety concerning our Eternal Salvation – for our trust (full belief) is in a Sovereign Lord God Who has redeemed us for time and Eternity.

“Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth (knows, has always known, and will forever know) them that are His.  And let everyone that nameth the Name of Christ depart from iniquity.”  (2 Timothy 2:19)

Verse 5. “Those that have made a Covenant with Me by sacrifice. This is the grand test, and yet some have dared to imitate it.  The Covenant was ratified by the slaying of victims, the cutting and dividing of the offerings; this the righteous (Christians) have done by accepting with true faith the great propitiatory Sacrifice (offering by Christ to fully appease the wrath of our Holy Father-God), and this the pretenders have done in merely outward form.  Let them be gathered before the throne for trial and testing, and as many as have really ratified the Covenant by faith in the Lord Jesus shall be attested before all worlds as the objects of distinguishing grace, while formalists shall learn that outward sacrifices are all in vain.  Oh, solemn assize, how does my soul bow in awe at the prospect thereof!” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 231)

To be Eternally secure in Christ Jesus is such a Divine blessing that brings our souls so much genuine and lasting peace, thus we are prudent to ‘...examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove (test) your own selves.  Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates (rejected of God)?  But I trust that ye shall know that we are not reprobates.”  (2 Corinthians 13:5) 

Have we a love for the Lord Jesus?  Have we a testimony of repentance from sin, to follow hard after Him?  Do we mortify our weaknesses and failings, and sins?   Do we spend time in prayer and in private fellowship with the One Who has saved us?  If so, we prove ourselves to be Spiritually regenerate, and belonging to the Lord God Who has saved us.

Verse 6. “And the Heavens shall declare his/her righteousness: for God is Judge Himself. The people of God are called holy inasmuch as they are dedicated to God.  It is the duty and privilege of saints to consecrate themselves to the service of God.”  (Condensed from J. Sibree’s ‘Sermon Preached at the Reopening of Surrey Chapel’, 1830)

Thought: To we who are elect of God, His assurance: “And call upon Me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me.”  Amen, so be it, dear Lord God.