[0:00] even so come quickly lord jesus amen take your bibles and go with me to psalm 51 you know this is a song they sung at church not church but when the congregation met together that's what this is a song book that's where we are god's people regularly need to realize they have sinned against the holy god and that they want to they we want to live right amen we want to live holy and pure lives i want you just to read with me if you would before i tell the story psalm 51 verse 1 again a couple of these verses have mercy upon me oh god according to thy loving kindness according of the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin i acknowledge for i acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me against thee the only have i sinned and done this evil in thy sight that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest and be clear when thou judgest father again i know third time i've come to you but it's all you please speak to us help us to acknowledge where we have not been what we should have been and get back where we ought to be help us to not hide our sin and play games with it but to be genuine and real like you teach in this passage and we give you honor and glory and praise in jesus name amen i know what you know about who we are positionally and i know that you like to weigh out on the positional side and sometimes you're like i can pretty well get away with anything i want but that's just really not a very biblical context god wants us to live holy and pure lives that honor him and we fail him oh we're not going to lose our salvation but we need to realize these verses were written as in samples or examples the bible says so you can read them and we can know how to deal with it before i get into the story i'd just like to say i want you to go with me in your mind and see how david could have avoided this sin when i deal with somebody who's messed up i always like to say where'd you start messing up how did it get from you walking with god to this point how did that happen what happened almost invariably with every north american person i ever talked to and those in peru it starts with well i started slacking off on my bible reading and prayer i think it was d.l moody that said the bible will keep you from sin or sin will keep you from the bible and when you slack off on that so in the story david has now come in psalm 51 and he is now saying boy god i need forgiveness but you need to remember he didn't do that of his own volition he didn't do that of his own will he hid everything and he kept sinning and just digging a deeper and deeper hole till he got caught and called out it was the holy spirit of god who sent a man so here's where it starts there was the bible says it this way and i don't have the time i will actually be in psalm 51 at least one more time with you the the so if i went to all these scriptures we'd never get through but it was the time when kings went forth to war in other words if anything david should have gone out and been doing what was kind of like the thing he ought to do instead of doing that david decided to send his armies out and he would stay home an idle mind they used to say is the devil's workshop and
[4:01] lazy stay at home not working people have more opportunity for the devil to mess with them david's at home that's the first step i think had david been doing what he ought to have been doing he very likely would not have fallen in sin and i think that if you were honest you sometimes mess up because you simply quit doing what you ought to do you just quit doing what you ought to do you know you're not attending church uh you got good excuse good reason i mean a coronavirus is a real thing i think i know that probably as much as most of you it's a real thing but then sometimes it can become an excuse thing i don't mean to make you too mad but it can become an excuse thing and all of a sudden uh i don't go to church and i don't feel like reading my bible and i don't feel like praying and i don't feel like working so i'm just laying around here being a bum you get the picture so that's what david's doing so it's late at night probably he's up on the rooftop of his house in america we can't understand that because our houses all have what we call in spanish two water houses it means the water rolls off both sides but in latin america it's a flat roof most of the time and uh so the fact is you've got tubes that come off your roof you better make sure the sand's out of them because if sand in the desert fills those tubes up and when it rains your roof becomes a pool and your house becomes a rain season and i've had that happen and so uh he's up on the roof his roof would have been higher than most because he lived in a nicer house and he looks across at his best friend's house one of his best friends uriah and he sees bathsheba taking a bath now you want to know the truth wasn't much sin in that i mean if you accidentally see what you're not supposed to see turn your head and quit looking don't look back you can't avoid you can't avoid um sometimes seeing things you shouldn't see but you don't have to look again amen there was a billboard in santiago chile for a while it was a very long billboard and had this beautiful woman nearly nude laying across that thing people had wrecks there quite regularly they'd be driving along checking out the woman bam have a wreck because they looked and they didn't quit looking and they got in trouble uh thank the lord we don't have many of those around here david looks and david looks again and david looks again and then david gets to thinking you know she's a pretty lady i'd like to meet her does he know that's your rise wife yet i don't know but he calls her and he says come up and spend some time with me i want to get to know where he sends somebody to get her and the next thing you know he's lusting over her and he sees her and he spends some time with her which as a christian you know you don't do that don't play with sin don't invite it into your house don't turn it on your tv don't look at it on your computer don't look at it at the office don't look at it at work you need to realize hey i want to do right i'm not inviting wickedness into my presence if i can help it can i get an amen there but he does invite him and then they start having relations i'm sure he thought i shouldn't do this but i'll do this just one time that's what usually happens i'll just do this one time but one time leads to two times and leads to many times and then she ended up pregnant she goes back to her house and not long she sends word to david i'm with child and david's like oh my goodness uh i never intended for that to happen and so real quickly instead of confessing his sin instead of doing right he did what we tend to do he decided to cover it up so he sends word to send uriah back to his house and so uriah comes home and david talks to him and says tell me how the battle's going buddy and uh uriah said things
[8:05] going good he said why don't you go spend the night with your wife tonight and enjoy things and then you can leave that'll be covered and i think it's your baby it'll be a preemie but uh it'll be your baby and uh uriah says i'm not gonna go spend my wife mommy and her in the field what david should have been thinking uriah was thinking and uriah doesn't go home next day david says good night his boys make it hard he calls him in the house and gets him drunk and he said surely drunk he'll forget his responsibilities that's a good uh sub sub point here you know y'all ought to stay away from junk it takes control of your mind and will and emotions and some of you play with this alcohol you get drunk and you'll do things you ought not do but uriah got drunk and he didn't he wouldn't go so david said well if you're not going to go here's a letter back to joab your commander and i'm going to tell him to put you in the hottest part of the battle and everybody falls back so you get killed and in uriah such a trustworthy man loves david he's one of david's mighty men he carries that death warrant all the way there gives it to joab joab kills him and sends word back david waits long enough to marry basheba and he continues to cover his sin this is going to go on probably well over a year he covers his sin and he doesn't confess his sin till one day nathan the man of god shows up the man of god comes in and you know that's got to be a scary situation david has the power of life and death over people he just killed uriah he could easily kill nathan and so nathan goes in the holy spirit says this is what you tell him tell him you know there was a guy came for a visit and an extremely rich man was going to feed him that night but he didn't want to give up one of his lambs so he went across the road and stole the lamb from a guy didn't have but a lamb or two and david said that's god that's wicked i will not put up with that i want that man killed and i want him to pay many times over and nathan goes you're the man and david knew he was caught now david realizes he must get right with god now before we go into the psalm and look at it i don't think david meant to sin and i don't think you mean this in but there's a roaring line wandering about seeking whom he may devour and he would destroy your marriage if he could he would he would leave your children without both parents he would destroy your health he would destroy everything about you he would destroy your testimony he wants to ruin all of us he hates us so that's why you were taught to always keep your shield lifted high to always if you ever notice i don't know if you ever pay attention but watch when you read the bible he always said watch and pray he never said pray he said watch and pray because it's pretty easy to pray and forget that the enemy is right there in the story in the story of gideon and his men he told him to get rid of everybody who drank water without watching because there's a principle in the bible you are at battle you are in a war and the devil is trying to mess with you and you got to realize he never comes in a red suit with a tail and a pitchfork and ears red ears on top of his head he comes looking real pretty like a lady taking a bath over at the other house he comes and says you can get away with this because you're the king you deserve this because of all you do and he lies to us and then he ruins us so i have your eyes open by the way can i just tell you he does it with thoughts and he comes into our head and he tells
[12:10] us lies about ourselves and lies about other people and we're so dumb we just let him play with our mind because we know what truth is but we forget to think on these things so david's been caught and that brings us to one of the most beautiful psalms in my opinion it's a psalm would can you imagine singing this can you imagine when you're having a worship service and the song leader says all right let's go to the 51st psalm and let's sing it i don't think you look at it that way but they on a regular basis said have mercy upon me oh god according to thy loving kindness according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies you see david calls on god to forgive him he knows something about his god and you need to underline that he knows who god is he knows he is despicable and filthy and horrible and if before you get through psalm 51 david's going to make it clear i'm not exactly the best man in the world he may call me a man after his own heart i may have written psalms but without him i am nothing and he said but when he gets caught he knows what to do he said i know where to go i know there's a mercy place i know there's a place where i can be forgiven and he goes to god and he said oh god now he knew he knew according to thy loving kindness oh god you are so sweet do you really think god disciplines you out of meanness do you really think god wants to strip you of wonderful sweet things he's a god of loving kindness he's a god of tender mercies it's not just tender mercies it's a multitude of tender mercies and david knew i can go to him and talk to him and he will blot out my transgressions verse 2 he said wash me thoroughly from my iniquity cleanse me from my sin he had rebelled against god he had done a twisted thing he had done a twisted thing god's not against sex god's not against a man loving a woman god's just against it when it's not a man married to that woman one man one woman one lifetime a man one man one woman one lifetime and he so he's done a twisted thing and he needs to be cleansed maybe some of the most important verses in this psalm are verse 3 and 4 he says i acknowledge my transgression and my sin is ever before me david takes full responsibility for his sin he admits that he has really sinned instead of covering it up he's confessing and admitting he's conscious of guilt he's owning what he did it was a transgression a violation of god's law he says that his sin is ever before him he lives under that guilt all the time years ago and i'd keep a young man who's now a missionary in venezuela and our church actually supports him i was driving down the road i saw him and his girlfriend she's a pretty girl he's a very good looking guy we just like put picture postcard perfect people and i stopped and i said y'all shouldn't be out here like this she's too pretty you're too handsome and y'all don't have anybody around you if you're not careful you're going to mess up and he said oh you know me better than that i'm not going to do that i said well i'm just telling you you need to be very careful don't be alone don't be touching don't be messing around they said oh you don't have to worry about us and i saw him a couple more times i warned him a couple more times and then one day he knocked on my door my office and his girlfriend came in and their
[16:10] faces were horrible tears and red and crying and swollen and he said i knew exactly what was going on he said she's pregnant and i said uh i'm sorry let's see what we can do to fix things now let's get right he said no that's not the only thing her mom and dad want her to abort the baby and uh so they're going to abort the baby and i said uh well let's see if we can save the baby first i went to that family's house and i said and they were rich people they lived in this kind of neighborhood i lived in he lived in a poor neighborhood i went in that house and of course they used derogatory terms racist type terms about him and i went into with the power of the holy spirit mortal combat without mom and dad and by the end of the day they promised me they wouldn't make her divorce the baby the would make her wouldn't make her abort the baby but they could never get married we walked out of the house and he said you failed he said they're not letting us get married i said they're not killing the baby we won battle one we won battle one eventually i dealt with them they let them get married she was big with child he came to me and they i had to memorize psalm 51 psalm 32 romans 6 uh ephesians 4 colossians 3 we went through a lot of scripture to get it in their head when they got married we got married at her house her daddy's house he wasn't saved and he said uh he didn't want him to get married but he was willing to go ahead and be kind and so i said well she'll come down the stairs into the little living room and you take her by the arm and bring her i'll ask who gives her away and as he came walking towards me at the front he just shoved her and said that's it went and sat down and i went over we did a little ceremony did the legal ceremony got them say got them married at church i had them step down from every responsibility they had this boy had been teaching sunday school since he was 15 leading people to christ he was like one of the greatest things we had in our church one of the greatest men and uh so after he memorized scripture and months had gone by and they hadn't gotten married yet he came to me and he said he's crying and he's lost tons of weight he said could we sing in the choir again and i said well i think you've done so much i believe you can so that sunday morning i let him sing in the choir sunday afternoon when the men came to the to me in the office and said you parade that filthy wickedness in our church and i said well really they've confessed their sin they memorize scripture they're doing everything they can to get right he said well you ought not parade that okay so i called him to my office young man came in i said let me tell you a story this is what just happened you know what he said to me he started crying he said my sin is ever before me just like david said i said what do you want to do he said i'll step down the guy who accused him committed adultery that year by the way amazing that's what's going on in the verse look if you would in psalm 51 and verse 3 my sin is ever before me that's where david lived do you understand that when david turned on jerusalem international news for the afternoon they might have been talking about his armies and his wars but his heart was thinking i sinned with bathsheba and i killed a man and god's not pleased his sin was ever before him i don't think other people realize that maybe bathsheba had an idea but people probably didn't realize how he was suffering when you read the story of lot in the bible in the old testament he's like the most vile filthy wicked man you can imagine but the new testament calls him just lot vexed with a filthy conversation of the wicked in psalm 51 4 david said and i really want you to pay attention to this
[20:14] against thee the only have i sinned i need you look at that verse david when he prays says this god i didn't sin against bathsheba i didn't sin against uriah and i didn't sin again he did he did but he sees the awesomeness of his sin you know what the most horrible thing about our sin is it's against our god the one who loved us the one who rescued us the one who made us your pornography your adultery your drunkenness your pride your anger is against the god of heaven then david said and i have done this evil in thy sight i need you underline thy sight you see it's never a matter of what society accepts there's coming a day in the united states of america if god doesn't work america a miracle where pedophilia is going to be accepted there's coming a day in america where man can marry man and woman can marry woman and eventually probably men will marry pets and everybody will think it's okay but sin's not what society thinks sin is not what cultures thinks it's as clear as day the holy spirit said write this down and done this evil in thy sight god you don't like this god you don't like this then he says by the way could i just say to you kings have rights david could have easily said i'm a king he's married to dozens of women already which god didn't like god told him in the very beginning kings are not to multiply wives or horses or riches and david said i've sinned then he says this that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest and be clear when thou judge us you do understand here's what we do when we sin we accuse god that's our best cover well that's ridiculous that's old testament the bible's a boring dead book it doesn't have anything to do with it and today god would accept this that's what we like to do we like to say god you're wrong when you said a one man and one woman you didn't mean that you're culturally irrelevant and david looked at god and said god i want you to be right not me i want you to be right and not society and i want it to be very clear that when you do when you judge you judge rightly he has no right to argue with god about what's right and wrong let me just stop and say this you know we don't have a right to rewrite the bible we don't have a right to come up with well god said a man and a woman to be married but he understands no you you don't have that right it was put down in pretty black and white print it's pretty clear and you got to be pretty dumb to not understand it but we do understand it we just don't like it and we argue with it but it's the word of god david acknowledges that he is rotten to the core we need to understand that we are sinners by nature and by choice david says in psalm 51 5 i was shapen look behold i was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me many want to see man as basically good but a bible perspective on man is he is absolutely terribly filthy flawed wicked depraved any words you want to use book of romans is such a harsh book especially in romans chapter 3 starting in verse 10
[24:16] and ending in verse 23 he says for all have sinned and come sure that they get back 3 10 as it's written there's none righteous none not one none righteous no not one and then he proceeds to say y'all's hearts are dirty your mouths are dirty you want to kill people you don't like me you don't look for me you are rotten to the core and he ends up saying and i'll just sum it up this way all have sinned that's who we are and david says god you know i know who i am i sin by choice i'm i'm not good sin is so much a part of us that it takes god convicting us to make us see it i'm afraid some of us that are listening by internet or here in the room i'm not sure you're saved because if you don't acknowledge your sin and your need of a savior you can make a mental agreement that god is right but you got to in your heart realize without him you got to go you got to go i cannot only he can you can't join a baptist church and go to heaven i believe there'll be baptist quarters in hell i believe independent fundamental baptists have their own neighborhood they won't know each other they'll be burning in fire but the whole point is god desires truth in the inward parts and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know you know god wants it here's what we do this has been all through the psalms we worship exterior externally the exterior we clean up the outside we can all look so spiritual you know time to go to church grab your bible know you haven't seen it all week but see if you can find it knock the dust off of it ruffle a few pages make it look like you've done something and come to church we can sing the songs we can say amen but god says i'm not really looking at all that stuff i'm not even that interested in your burnt offerings or your sacrifices i am really interested in the inward parts all the way down inside you realize we could say externally i have sinned but inside go no not really god wants truth in the very core of our being and he will make us to know wisdom i want you to realize this there's a flipping attitude about soul winning and getting saved where you just say somebody say these magic words and you go to heaven but nobody goes to heaven unless they realize they've sinned and they need jesus and they trust christ did you have you come to the place you realize boy without him i would not go to heaven how do you deal with your sin do you make excuses and argue with god you see that's not what david did david says no god you're right now he covered it up for a long time but once the holy spirit sent the preacher and the preacher spoke to him do you think it might be sin for others but it's okay for you you kind of look around the room and say hey i might be messing up but that guy's messing up worse than me that woman's messing up worse than me do you realize that it really all comes back to god i'd really like to show you something salvation is a god thing he convicted us of our sin he pulled us out of the filth and the mire he transformed us he made us a new creature do you admit that god is right you know it's normal for a young boy and young girl to pet and play around it maybe even have premarital sex it's okay everybody's doing it but god says it's not right i don't care what everybody's doing my daddy was a country guy and he didn't have a lot of he didn't have the pithy sayings but i used
[28:19] to say well daddy everyone's going and he'd say they're all going to hell too you plan on going there you're like that don't make sense daddy i just want to go to the dance tonight have you noticed how good god is after all i think one of the most wonderful and beautiful pictures in this whole thing is i mean he's a king you can't get higher in his society let me explain something to you our president's last eight years he's a king for years decades he's the most powerful richest most influential person in his country if anybody should be able to do what he does it ought to be him and when the holy spirit says to him you are the man he goes you're right and then people ask his mercy every day but he goes to god and says oh god look at it psalm 51 and verse have mercy upon me oh god i know you are full of loving kindness i know you have a multitude of tender mercies blot out my transgressions david knew god's character david knew god's character i'm not even a third of the way through this outline in this message i got a couple of more so you might get more psalms 51 than you want but let me just say this to you he loves you god gave us four children when i was a kid my daddy used to say when he spanked me this hurts me more it does you and i always used to think give me the belt and we'll see well you get on the other end i'll beat you and we'll see if it hurts me worse it does you that way but you know a real dad just loves his kids and sometimes i punish him for my own pleasure and sometimes i was overzealous and cruel and did things i shouldn't have done as i punished them but god never does that oh he's a good god hebrews chapter 12 he said your daddy probably punished you for his own pleasure i do it for your good so today you may be messing around in sin you may be doing things you ought not be doing you may be wandering far from god but you're a born-again believer and you know you are and you know your sins ever before you and you know god's not pleased and though you put on a happy face and though you tell everybody inside something saying get it right get it right you can quit that porn you can quit that alcohol you can quit that adultery you can quit that uh pride and anger you can have victory because there's a god saying if any man labor and is heavy burdened let him come unto me and he loves you and he loves me and the greatness of this story it's not about david it's about a god who forgave david it's about a god that david knew even in the middle of his sin oh he's good and i can go to him it's amazing to me he wrote a song and he told all the people at the congregation let's sing this song because maybe like me you've been sinning and maybe like me you've been playing games with our god and maybe you won't be nailed by nathan like i was but maybe today's the day you would say oh have mercy upon me have mercy upon me oh my god i know you're full of loving kindness and i know there's a multitude of tender
[32:23] mercies and i know you can blot out my sin some of you are going to say well he wasn't saved oh he was he's already been writing psalms good people god's people can mess up the good thing about god is he'll tan your hide to bring you home to where you belong father in heaven i love you and i thank you for who you are and what you're doing and i pray god that you would cause your people this morning to just come clean with you and let you do your work i know god that you already forgiven them and i know that you just want them to acknowledge that they have messed up david knew that and god help our people to know that this morning give us victory there might be some of you this morning that aren't saved if you died you don't know you go to heaven please don't go to heaven based on you prayed a prayer when you were three years old which you don't even remember maybe it's time for you to get saved today i want to help you and then maybe the holy spirit's deal with you about a sin in your life and you want to come and you want to pray to god like david did i want you to get out of your seat and find a place to pray i want you to come talk to him it's time to take a stand and say oh i want god to work in me would there be anyone anybody's not saved i want to help you too anybody father god in heaven i love you and i praise you and i magnify you and i ask that you work today god i want to see you change our lives help us to be who we're supposed to be walk like we're supposed to walk and i'll give you praise with every head bowed and every eye closed i want to get steven to lead us in a song we may only sing one verse but i don't want you to go home without responding to what the holy spirit of god's already said to you so whenever you're ready to sing you can stand and sing pray in your seat pray at the front but let's don't ignore what god said today wonderful merciful merciful savior precious redeemer and friend who would have thought that a lamb could rescue the souls of men oh you rescue the souls of men you are the one that we praise you are the one we adore you give the healing and grace our hearts always hunger for oh our hearts always hunger for for almighty infinite father faithfully loving your own here in our weakness you find us falling before your throne oh we're falling before before your throne you are the one that we praise you are the one that we praise you are the one we adore you give the healing and grace our hearts always hunger for
[36:28] oh our hearts always hunger for well thank you very much you can have a seat just for a second i want to tell you i love you i think about you all night long every time i old man get up and go to the bathroom and i pray for you and i pray that god will let our church do more than it's ever done before we cannot let this coronavirus back us into a corner and get us to quit doing what god wants us to do we got to get our mysteries back to the we need god on the field we need god to work so i want to call on you to pray and ask we got guys leaving going back to the field cannon bloom leaves in about a little less than two weeks uh snowed's leaving less than 40 days now john walls will be leaving to go uh to uh taiwan um so we just got some wonderful things going on um so pray for them pray that the doors will open boy if you know sean bateman god is blessing that man uh his church is in a year he's got the largest baptist church in the city and god's blessing and people are getting saved uh he was doing discipleship this past week and uh they were talking about sin and uh they were talking about sin and mentioned murderers and the guy goes yeah i've done that and john called me said what am i supposed to do i said ask him not to hurt you amen that's the first step and uh but uh god's blessing and we're excited now tonight david gates will preach and david's on his way to dearborn michigan uh into a very hard area of islam and muslims he couldn't get back into egypt so we're going to pray for him tonight and we're going to listen to him tell us what god's going to do very proud of him proud he's uh when the one door closed he found another so he got a house rented and i think this week they leave and move to dearborn so tonight will be a special time and i hope you'll be here with us thank you very much god bless you thank you