Flanigan, Jim: The Psalms 08 Psalm 51 The Backslider

Now, this evening we come to a very sad Psalm, yet it's a very majestic one. It's the Psalm number fifty one, Psalm 51. It is the Psalm of the backslider, the Psalm of the penitent, the Psalm of one who has very sadly failed and now is coming back again. Perhaps we'll read scattered verses through the Psalm, beginning at verse number one, Psalm 51 and verse 1. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin, for I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee 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. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Further down at verse sixteen. For thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion. Build thou the walls of Jerusalem. Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering. Then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar. And I suppose that the great heart cry of the Psalm is back in verse number twelve: Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. And the Lord will bless the reading of those lovely verses. Now, the word backsliding that we have used is a very familiar word in our vocabulary. It is not altogether a New Testament word. I don't think the word is ever found in the New Testament. It might be that we are not contemplated as becoming backsliders, but nevertheless, of course, we do. And when we get this language of a backslider returning in penitence, then there is no doubt that some of us will use this language from time to time as we find our way back again from coldness of heart and from departure. The word backsliding is found thirteen times in the prophecy of Jeremiah, and it's found again perhaps about three or four times in the little book of Hosea. And I'm sure that most of you will know that both Jeremiah and Hosea, well, those pages are very much wet with tears. There are many, many mentions of weeping in the prophecy of Jeremiah, so many that we have come to know him as the weeping prophet. And again, in Hosea, it is the constant cry of the returning backslider. I suppose that there are no more pathetic, rather miserable persons on earth than that person who has known the joy of salvation and has lost it. And to get away in this backslidden state is a very sad and a very pathetic condition. And to some degree or other, I suppose it happens to all of us at some time or other, we're going to see the way back this evening. And if it might be that there is a cold heart into park here somewhere in our meeting this evening, I trust that in all tenderness we might find our way back again in the language of this lovely psalm. Now, what I want to do is to divide what I have to say into six very simple parts. I don't want to go down the psalm methodically, but, eh, we want to look at the most of it nevertheless, and I want to point out six things connected with backsliding. The first thing we want to see is the cause of it, and that is very, very solemn. It might not actually be here in this psalm, but we've got to go back to find the reason for the writing of this psalm, and when we go back to find the reason for David's sad departure, well, the cause of backsliding, we're going to see the cause of it first of all. Now, after we have talked about the cause of David's departure, we want then to come to try to assess the cost of it, and the cost of David's backsliding was very, very heavy. We'll see just what indeed it did cost David to get away in the way that he did from the Lord. But then, of course, there came another rather sad experience with David, but one of the sad things that is mingled with blessing, and that was that he came to what we shall call the consciousness of it. And when David came to the consciousness of what he had really done, well, that was a, a really traumatic experience, but at least it was the beginning of the way back. So we're going to see then the consciousness of this backsliding. Now, on the way back then, we want to see that that consciousness will eventually bring us to confession, and we're going to see that in the consciousness and in the confession of departure and of backsliding, that we cannot always use the language that David used. We live in a different disposition- dispensation. We have a more full blessing and revelation than even David the king ever had, and we're going to see that there are some expressions in this psalm that, well, it wouldn't really be intelligent for us to use them. And we want to point out one or two little things about the New Testament consciousness of backsliding and the confession of the erring believer. That brings us then to the contrition, and of course that contrition sort of runs right through the Psalm. The whole Psalm sort of throbs with the contrition of this heartbroken man, and we want to see that this is true and real penitence on the part of David. And then, of course, we must get to the restoration. We see what you might call cleansing, and that would be all right to call it that, provided that we see it intelligently, because the New Testament believer, he doesn't need to be cleansed, to be bathed all over again. He has been bathed, he has been cleansed and washed once, and after that he but, he but needs the washing of the feet. So maybe instead of cleansing, it might be that the word restoration is better. So we're going to see the restoration of the penitent backslider. I hope that these six little headings will gather together, uh, the most of the contents of this great psalm, and, uh, that we shall not only get the meaning of these things, but we pray that the spirit and the meaning of it might grip our hearts as well. An academic knowledge would not really be of very much benefit to any of us. I trust that not only our minds, but our consciences and our hearts as well will be affected. Now, one of the saddest things, I think, as I studied this psalm, is that this backsliding, this departure, this terrible sin that has been the reason for the writing of this psalm, it was not the fall of a young believer. This is not the case of a young, immature believer being caught up by the world. What we are talking about now is the coming back of one who had lapsed, who was a man of perhaps nearly fifty years old, and not only that, but already at this particular time, eh, the nation was enjoying his psalms, they were singing his psalms, so many he had already written, and he was the man who had very, very often, in fact, led Israel and the nation to victory. So it is not the falling away of a young believer being tripped up by the world with youthful lusts or something like that. It's the sad lapse of a man who should have been very much more mature. We're not being critical of David, but only pointing out that this sort of increases the sadness of the Psalm, the fact that it is a mature man of fifty years old who has backslidden before the writing of this psalm. Now, I'm sure you know the reason for the writing of the psalm. It is indeed in the little title at the top of the psalm. David has sinned very grievously, and now he is finding his way back. But what exactly was the cause of this great man's departure in this way? Well, it all began, you know, with what looked to be a good thing. David had become very prosperous, and, uh, prosperity in those days was very, very often a sign that God was pleased with the man. Very, very often, material prosperity went along sort of with divine blessing, and you might have looked at David and, uh, seen his prosperity, and you might well have said, well, now God has really blessed the man, and here, after all, was a man after God's own heart, and God had gone along with the man, and materially he had blessed the man abundantly. But prosperity has its snares, and it has often been said that it takes a steady hand to carry a full cup, and here is a man whose prosperity now apparently taps him into what we might call self-indulgence. Uh, you remember the cry in another place that, uh, we might be granted neither riches nor poverty, because with the two extremes there is apparently a problem and a snare. Well, here is the snare of prosperity, that it makes a man perhaps a little self-indulgent, and that certainly happened to David and his self-indulgence. It just went along with ease, which became eventually idleness. And I'm sure that self-indulgence and ease and idleness, they never were God's intention when he gave such prosperity to David the king. But there you are, from the prosperity to the self-indulgence, to the ease, and then to the idleness. And then this idleness became something worse because it actually became sloth. It became slothfulness, and that is even worse than being idle, because perhaps you can be idle and not be slothful. But here was David, and I think, I don't think we're being unkind in saying that his self-indulgence had led to an idleness which had become sloth. And now, not only that, but it goes now to lust, which apparently has grown out of this idleness and sloth, and you can read the whole story, of course, and confirm what I'm saying in Second Samuel chapters eleven and twelve. It's there that you get the whole story. And then, of course, that lust eventually led to the terrible sin of adultery. And there, you see, it was not just something that happened on the spur of the moment. It's not a young believer that's being tripped up. It is an older man who had known the blessing of God. And I repeat again that his prosperity led to self-indulgence, his self-indulgence to ease and to idleness, to sloth and to lust, and eventually to adultery. You see, it all happened, it says, at the time when kings go forth to battle, and when other kings were out there in the battleground, we read of David that he stayed in his house. Far better, perhaps morally, if David had died on the battlefield than having fallen into the sin which eventually required the writing of the Psalm fifty one. So the lesson is that the terrible downgrade begins in a very, very simple way. Almost, you might say, insidiously, this departure begins, and we need to ever guard our own hearts because, eh, well, we can from very simple and small beginnings, we can get away into the very same thing. Here is a lesson for us, and here is a kind of a signpost that would direct us away from the trap, the traps and the snares into which David fell. Now, if the adultery had been the end of it, that would have been bad enough. That indeed was a very, very serious crime on the part of David. But after the adultery, we find then that there was a terrible lot of pretense. He sent for Uriah, who was the husband of Bathsheba, with whom the sin had been committed, and, uh, there was a lot of hypocrisy and pretense as David tried to somehow cover up the sin that he had committed. And there was insincerity with the man Uriah, and not only was there hypocrisy and, and this pretense and insincerity, but then you find that that led on to craft and cunning, and eventually to the utter disregard of the lives of other people and of the life of Uriah himself, until eventually, if only David's sin can be hidden, if only it can be covered up, he is apparently content with the murder of Uriah. Now, that was a sad thing. So from the prosperity that went along with the blessing of God, right down this terrible downgrade that led to the idleness, to the lust and the adultery, then the pretense and the hypocrisy, and then the cunning and the craft and the eventual murder of Uriah. You would hardly have thought that a man like David, who had actually subdued Philistines and Syrians and Amalekites and Ammonites and Moabites and Edomites, he had subdued all these, and Israel praised him for it all. But apparently he was not able to subdue himself and his own passions, and here we have the great David, and he's guilty of adultery and of murder. In fact, David has broken three commandments. He broke the tenth one, he broke the seventh one, and in the covering of it up, he broke the sixth one. And apart from other things, those three commandments were very deliberately broken by this good man. And I repeat again, the lesson, I think for me personally, is that we need to watch, to be careful every moment and with every little thing, because from very small beginnings, the backsliding can start, and who knows where it will end. I thought it was a rather a bit like the sad story that you have in connection with the seven churches in the book of Revelation. You remember the depths to which they went. Some of those churches are in a very, very sad state, and some of them indeed, well, it's almost unthinkable that a company could get into such a state. And if you view it as a kind of a panorama of a bigger thing, then you know where it all began. It all began when the Lord said to Ephesus, he says, I have against you that you've left your first love. Who would have thought that going just a little bit cold in love for Christ would eventually lead into the terrible depravity of, say, the church at Thyatira. From the small beginnings, then, we have this terrible departure. I thought I saw an illustration of it one day. I was visiting a friend upcountry, and he had moved some, perhaps a year earlier, he had moved into a, a very nice new bungalow, and there was one gable wall of this bungalow was painted white, and he had a most beautiful flowering shrub growing up a trellis on this white wall. It was a very colorful thing and very beautiful. And I, as I came to the door, I said, that's a, a lovely shrub you have there growing up the wall. Aye, he said, it was, but I said, what do you mean it was? He said, come until you see. He made me get down on my knees beside him there at the little spot, just a tiny little square of soil where the shrub was growing from. And there, maybe just about four inches from the ground, this slender main stem of the shrub was severed. It was broken right in two. He blamed the children. He didn't really know, but someone had broken the stem. I said, what will happen? He said, it'll die. I said, there's nothing you can do? Not a thing, he said. I was back with him later, and it was a sad sight. Just a great withered thing there, waiting to be pulled down. And I thought to myself, it's a little bit like the departure in Ephesus, an apparently small thing, but there it is, the life has been sort of interrupted at the source. Thou hast left thy first love, and the life of love and of joy and of communion has been severed from its source. And how many a beautiful testimony has died just because of some simple thing like David's prosperity and ease and self-indulgence. Here then is the cause of David's backsliding. Now we come to look at the cost of it, and for David the cost was very heavy. If I count correctly, it would seem that perhaps about a year passed before Nathan the prophet came in before David and pointed out in that very powerful way that he did, he pointed out David's sin. I'm sure you remember the story, how the prophet came in, and he said, Na- David, he said, I, I, I want to tell you a story, he said. There were two men, they were neighbors, they lived in the same town, and one of these men was very wealthy. He had flocks and herds, and he seemed to have everything in abundance, and the other man was poor, and all he had, in fact, was just one little ewe lamb, and it had become so, uh, so very close to him that Nathan said, you know, it was nearly like a daughter in the family, this one little ewe lamb. But one day, this man who had the flocks and herds, uh, he had unexpected visitors. He's got to find meat, he's got to make a meal, he's got to cook a dinner for them. And what does he do? He goes and he takes, he steals this little ewe lamb that belongs to his neighbor, and he kills it, and he dresses it, he cooks it, and provides a meal for his guests from the death of the little, one little ewe lamb that was the joy of his neighbor. David was angry. He says he'll restore fourfold, and David was very angry with the man that had done such a thing. Nathan let him go on for a little while, pronouncing his judgments upon this man who had sinned. And then says David, Nathan, I think he must have pointed the finger at David. He said, thou art the man. 'Tis you, David. A year has passed, but now Nathan points it out. And you know, David has actually pronounced his own judgment. He shall restore fourfold, and David literally paid fourfold for the taking of that sheba. He lost the child that was born, whose name I don't think we know, but the child died, a boy. He lost absalom, he lost Amnon, and he lost Adonijah, and the three of them were murdered. David, guilty of the murder of Uriah, and of the stealing of her who was so close to Uriah's heart, has repaid fourfold according to his own judgment, and he has lost four boys, three of them by murder, just like he had been guilty of the murder of Uriah. But I think that if you want to see the real cost in the feelings of David, you've got to really read the thirty second Psalm. When you go to Psalm thirty two, it is believed that this was a psalm that was written during that year when David was so far away in heart from the Lord. And in Psalm thirty two, there are sleepless nights of a man who is sick in his mind and probably sick in his body too, because sickness of mind often leads to sickness of the body, physical suffering. And David talks about his very bones rotting. He has lost his joy, he has lost his communion, he has lost his effectiveness for God. It seems indeed that David has lost the joy of everything that he used to have, as well as losing these four sons. The cost of departure is very heavy in mind, in spirit, and who knows, but maybe in body as well. Twice David mentions joy. I think once it is the joy of forgiveness, and perhaps the other time it is the joy of communion. But David prays something that we cannot pray. He says, take not thy Holy Spirit from me. And I'm sure that you know already that the New Testament believer cannot intelligently pray that prayer. But David, you see, was in a different dispensation to us, and he could pray that, take not thy Holy Spirit from me, or as some will have it, the the spirit of holiness, the spirit of thy holiness, and whichever way you translate it, it would seem indeed to be a reference to the Holy Spirit, and we cannot pray that intelligently. Good for the young believer to know that we cannot pray that intelligently in this dispensation, because, of course, we are indwelt by the Spirit, and we are born of the Spirit, and it just isn't possible that the Spirit of God can be taken from us as New Testament believers. We can, of course, grieve the Spirit, and we can quench the Spirit, but, uh, we can certainly never lose the Spirit in the way that they lost it in the Old Testament. It just isn't possible for the New Testament believer to lose the spirit of God. Some years ago, many years ago, I went to Australia, and before leaving for Australia, I went to see an old uncle, and he was an old grand uncle, an uncle of my father's, and I went to say goodbye to him and to tell him something about our traveling to Australia, because I knew that he had been there as a boy. And in the course of the conversation, the old man said to me, he said, how long is it going to take you to get there? Oh, I said it will take about uh four weeks, maybe five. Uh, we were going by ship. And he was amazed at that, and I thought he was amazed that it was going to take so long. I said, it's a long way, you know. Oh, he said, I know that. He said, I'm amazed that you're getting there so quickly. I said, so quickly? I said, it's going to take four or five weeks. But he said, when I was a boy, he said, I went there. I was a deck boy, he said, on one of the ships, and he said, do you know how long it took us to go? He said, it took us six months to go. I said, six months? How did it take you that long? Well, he said, you know, we went in an old sailing ship, and he said we were dependent upon the wind coming, and if the wind didn't come, he said, we were becalmed, and we couldn't do a thing, only sit and wait until the wind came. And then when it came, it blew upon the sails, and we set the sails, and it carried us along a little bit, and then when it ceased to blow, he said, we had to sit there and wait, and no matter how skillful you were with the sails, if there was no wind, you couldn't move. He said it took us six months. Well, I said, of course, you know that we're not going in a sailing ship. I said, we're going in a ship that carries its own energy inside, and it isn't dependent on the wind at all. Indeed, if the wind is blowing against it, it can go in the face of the wind because it's got its own power inside, and it isn't dependent upon outward influences at all. And that, of course, is just like the Old Testament and the New Testament believer. In these Old Testament days, the Spirit of God came upon a man and bore him along. You remember when they were writing the scriptures, it says the holy men of God stay as they were borne along by the Spirit. But that is not so with us now. We have the same energy and power of the Spirit of God that came upon those Old Testament believers, and we have him now residing within us as an indwelling person. Therefore, we cannot pray intelligently, take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Nor, by the way, can we intelligently pray that the Spirit might come to us. And we live in days, mind you, when there is a lot of confusion with regard to the Spirit, and a lot of confusion with regard to addressing the Spirit, and hymnology and modern choruses are full of the prayers to the Spirit and cries to the Spirit to come to us and to come upon us, and this is not intelligent New Testament language. We have an indwelling Spirit. We are born of the Spirit, sealed with the spirit, indwelt by the spirit, and because of that, there is some Old Testament language that we can't use. But while we cannot use this, take not thy Holy Spirit from me, we can certainly cry like David, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. So, the cost is very sad. Neither consciousness or the conscience of backsliding, and David eventually comes to this terrible consciousness, the enormity of what he has done. He uses several similes down the psalm, which may be a little bit lost in our authorized version. He says, wash me thoroughly. You know that word wash? It is sometimes translated, wash me, beat me, knead me. He feels, in fact, like a soiled garment. And that is how they did, you know, in those days when garments were soiled. In the washing of them, they beat the garment, they kneaded the garment, they beat it upon the stones, and this is what David is crying. He says, wash me, beat me, knead me. He feels like a soiled garment. And then he says, purge me. And this word purge, well, it seems as if now he's feeling like a, like a defiled leper, because this word purge is the word that was used for priestly cleansing. He says, Purge me from my, my iniquity, from my sin, from my transgressions, purge me. Then, not only does he feel like a soiled garment, and not only does he feel like a defiant leper, but he knows that his very record on high has been stained as well, and he says, blot out my transgressions, blot them out from the records. How sad the state of the backslider. And here is poor David in the terrible consciousness of it all. The genuine backslider is never happy in the world. I remember a young man who was very, very active in our assembly. We were young Christians together. He too, in a very simple way, was tripped up and taken away into the world. And you know, I would say that to the spectator, he seemed to be having a great time in the world. He seemed to be really thoroughly enjoying himself. One day, I literally bumped into him, literally, at a corner in Victoria Street in Belfast. I came one way, he came the other, and literally at the corner I bumped into him. I said, David, it's nice to see you. And we stood and we talked for a little while about things in general. Then we began to talk about the earlier days, about the meetings, about the service that we had together, about the things that he used to enjoy. I said, David, tell me honestly. I said, how is it now? Do you know, he stood at the corner and wept, wept, unashamedly wept at the corner. Oh, he said, I'd love to be back. I'd love to be back. Sometimes it's hard getting back, but he did get back, and he wasn't very long back until, as a very young man, the Lord took him home. How grateful we were that he had gotten back again. David comes to his confession. He uses three words. He says, my transgression, my iniquity, my sin. Now, this is not just a sort of, uh, needless, heedless repetition. Oh no. What David is doing now, actually, he is trying to show the enormity of what he has done, and the terrible consciousness of it comes out in this confession, and he uses every word that he can think of to describe his sin. What does he mean by my transgression? He means rebellion. It is the word that was used, in fact, for insubjection. It was the rising of a subject will against its true king. That was the word that was used for insurrection. David says, my transgression, that's what it is. And then he says, my iniquity. And this word means perversion. It means distortion. It means crookedness and departure from the perfect straight line of righteousness. David says, my transgression, my iniquity. And then he uses the simple little word, my sin, which means, of course, missing the mark. And then, his confession is absolutely and completely unreserved. He says, this evil, I have done this evil in thy sight. And then, not looking for excuses, he says, blood guiltiness, that's what it is. What a confession has been wrung from the heart of this dear man. Transgression, iniquity, sin, this evil, blood guiltiness, and although other people are involved and he has sinned against men, he doesn't see it like that anymore. He says, against thee, thee only have I sinned. This is now recognizing the, the, the, the enormity of this transgression. He says, it's against God that I have sinned. There must be a full confession. We must get back to the point of departure and acknowledge the departure unreservedly. I'm sure you've read Pilgrim's Progress, I hope you have. Do you remember when Pilgrim in his journey lost his scroll, his roll, as he called it? He discovers one day that he hasn't got it, and he's got to go right back to the point where he lost it, right back to the spot where he lost it, he's got to go. And then when he collects it again, he's got to do that journey all over again. Oh, he says, I've done this journey, he says, three times, when once would have done. You see, he traveled on a certain distance without his robe, then he had to go back again to the point where he lost it, and then he had to do that all over again. We've got to go back to the point of departure, and David did that, and he did it so unreservedly, acknowledging his sin. Look at his contrition, his sorrow. A broken spirit, a broken heart, and broken bones. The three broken things of the Psalm. This is real sorrow. This is genuine lament on the part of this man. He is cast humbly upon God, and he speaks about the multitude of thy tender mercies and loving kindnesses. He is cast wholly upon God, and all he can do is to come with a broken spirit and a broken heart. Oh, he says, he says, I know that sacrifice is not the answer. He said, if burnt offerings were the answer, I could bring burnt offerings. He still, you see, was the man blessed materially so very, very much, and if it had been, eh, an abundance of burnt offerings, David could have brought that. But what value would burnt offerings have been? Oh, he says, the sacrifices of God are a broken, a contrite heart, a broken spirit, and he comes with his broken spirit and broken heart, and I think that physically the man was broken as well, broken bones. Now, there is restoration, and thank God there is restoration for us. Some of you are strangers to me. I wonder, would there be someone this evening in our meeting, in that sadness of departure, of backsliding, there is restoration. There is a way back. And as I close, I want to explain a little verse. I hope it doesn't sound presumptuous when I say that. I think it is not generally understood, this lovely verse from First John and chapter two. Indeed, I think that there is a wrong interpretation of it generally held. I ask you to think about it. John says in his epistle, he says, little children, he says, I'm writing these things to you that you don't sin. You shouldn't. But then he recognizes the possibility that we, we may sin, but he says, if any man sin, he said, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and I quote the authorized version, we have an advocate with the Father. Now, if I can present the usual interpretation in a fair way, I think it is this. That I sin, I do something wrong, I've sinned against God, and well, I look up and there in the glory there is a man who is an advocate, and he's there pleading my cause and representing me before God as my advocate. I confess that for many years I have misgivings about that interpretation, and these were brought to a head, I think, by two things. And one thing was this: I could never understand why I needed an advocate with the Father. An advocate. You see, an advocate, well, I thought of a legal man, and this is the general interpretation. Here is a legal aid that I have in the heavens, an advocate. I could never understand that I should need an advocate in that sense with my father. Now, if it had said an advocate with God, well, you know, I think I could have understood that, but it didn't say that. It's an advocate with the father. Do I really need an advocate in the usual sense of that word? Do I need an advocate with the father? Then, the second thing that made me think about it very seriously was just the simple little preposition, an advocate with the Father. Now that preposition with is the preposition which means towards. Now that didn't seem to me to make sense. An advocate towards the Father. But then, of course, as many of you will know, that word advocate is the word which is translated in, eh, the upper room ministry four times. It's translated comforter in connection with the Holy Spirit, translated the comforter. And as most of you again will know, it is the word paraclete, parakletos. I don't know Greek, but there are little words that we gather up as we go along, and that's one of them, and it's the word parakletos. And you know that P-A-R-A, para, well, that's another preposition, and that means alongside of. And when we speak of the paraclete, we mean simply one who comes alongside another for the purpose of helping or aiding or comforting them, you see. And so the Lord Jesus in First John two is a paraclete, a comforter, but unfortunately we have a translated advocate, and we think of an advocate as being a different person. Now I ask you to look at it this way. Let me illustrate it. Here's a little family, and they're sitting at the table at a meal. They're sitting at dinner. And here's a boy in the family, and he does something wrong. And father sends him away from the table. Happens in the best of households. He sends him away from the table and directs him upstairs with the word that he's not to come down until he's coming down to say he's sorry. And away the boy goes, maybe sulking, and he's gone upstairs. And with that stubbornness that is in many of us, he, he he's not for coming down to, to say he's sorry. Very, very difficult to say I'm sorry. Those are two very difficult words to say, I'm sorry. So he's not to come down until he's coming down to say I'm sorry, and he's been sent upstairs. Now there's another one at the table, and she's got a very tender heart, and she thinks of her boy upstairs, and she knows how he's feeling and what he's thinking. So up she goes to him. Now, don't misunderstand, she does not condone his wrong. She is not comforting him in the wrongdoing. There is no condoning at all of what he has done. It's wrong. She knows it, he knows it, the father knows it, everybody knows that he's done wrong, and she's not comforting him in his wrongdoing. But what she says is this. She says, now look, you know you'll have to say I'm sorry. Come, come on. I'll stay beside you. I'll go with you. Come down. You come down. I'll come with you, and you say I'm sorry. And with the comforter by his side, he is helped towards the Father. And when he comes to the Father, he says, I'm sorry. That's confession. Does the Father make him cringe and beg for forgiveness? Oh, no, no, no. He doesn't even have to ask for forgiveness. He's only got to say, I'm sorry, and the forgiveness is automatic if he says, I'm sorry. We shouldn't sin, but we do. And if any man sin, we have a, a comforter who will help us towards the Father, one who will stay by our side and help us to the point and the place of confession. And we come and we say, I'm sorry, I have sinned. And like the prodigal, we are stopped there. He had a longer sermon, you know, as many of our brethren often point out when they preach the gospel. He had all sorts of things that he was going to suggest, that he was, he'd been made like a servant, and he, he had little things that he was going to put to the Father. But, you know, he never got any further than this. Father, I have sinned. That's all that the Father wants. I have sinned. And once he says, I'm sorry, then there is restoration, the joy of salvation, the joy of communion. These are all restored again. And not only that, but it's obvious from the end of this psalm that the very testimony of Jerusalem and the worship of the nation is affected by the sinning of the king, by the departure and the transgression of David. And then he says that when he's restored, he says, do good to Zion, build the walls of Jerusalem. And he speaks then about burnt offerings and bullocks being offered upon the altar. Worship and testimony are being restored again because the erring one has been restored as an individual. So my backsliding affects not only me, but it affects, of course, the testimony that I'm associated with. So there is the cause of it. May the Lord preserve us. The cost of it, very, very heavy. The consciousness of it, very bitter, but at least it's the beginning of the way back. The confession is very real and genuine, unreserved. There is contrition right down the psalm, the sorrow for the sin, and eventually the restoration of this penitent backslider, and the psalm ends on that happy note of Jerusalem being restored again. May the Lord preserve us from backsliding and sinning in the first instance, and if it might be that in heart we are away from him at the moment, I trust that we get back again into communion and into the joy of his salvation. May the Lord bless our meditation. Shall we pray?