Holy Wholeness – David’s Restoration
Holy Wholeness – David’s Restoration
Scripture: Psalm 51
Lt. Colonel Allen Satterlee
Spiritual Life Officer
USA Southern Territory
By the time David finished, he not only committed adultery under the guise of an elaborate deception, but he topped it off with the cold-blooded murder of a trusted associate. It is a sordid story of a very good man going very, very bad. He thought he’d gotten away with it. Sitting smugly on his throne and now married to the widow of the man he had murdered; his arrogance was suddenly shattered by the prophet Nathan.
Confrontation
Nathan outlined a story about a wealthy farmer who owned thousands of sheep, but to feed a visiting guest he took a poor farmer’s pet sheep away for slaughter. Hearing of this horrible and heartless injustice, David cried out, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.” With fearless authority Nathan pointed at the king and said, “You are the man!” Nathan then inventoried David’s crimes, leaving the king breathless until he could but whisper, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Samuel 12:1-13). He next learned that his sin had wide ranging consequences beginning in his own home then radiating throughout the kingdom.
The pompous king was now a broken man as he felt the crushing load of his sin. It was because of this experience that David wrote Psalm 51, a psalm that reveals both deep remorse and hope for cleansing.
Mercy
David’s first plea was for mercy. He sought God’s protection from His just wrath. But he appealed to God’s unfailing love: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to Your great compassion blot out my transgressions” (vs. 1). David remembered God’s tender mercy for the sins of his past. Based on that record of compassion, David approached Him once again. When his sin was out in the open, he saw himself for what he had become. David knew that only God’s mercy could save him. Despite the horrible acts that caused so much suffering, he owned that it was God who was more deeply offended. Everyone else had only a partial understanding of the depth of his sin, but God knew not only what David had done but what he had fantasized and longed to do in defiance of his Lord.
David’s act of accepting his sin had to come first or else forgiveness couldn’t be given. Too many people who have done wrong just want to go on without acknowledging the harm they have done to themselves, to others and their relationship with God. But David knew that a shallow repentance was no repentance at all. This was no “slap another coat of paint on it” but a sanding down to the base material until all the old was removed.
Even as he pleaded for forgiveness, David realized the scope of his situation. Verses 5-9 outline the problem. With a fully operating sinful nature David knew he was not only guilty of this sin but capable of far worse. When he sought to do better, determined he would live right, he could feel the gravity of sin pulling him forcibly back to defeat. David said, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (vs. 5).
Cleansing
What was his hope? It wasn’t to be converted – David sincerely loved the Lord. If not to be saved, what did he need? He pleaded for a cleansing that would go beyond anything that he had ever experienced. “Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow” (vs. 7). Hyssop was used in religious ceremony to sprinkle a lamb’s blood on cleansed lepers. The cleansing he begged for was deep enough to even remove a leper’s scars.
This purity that David needed led him to pray, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (vs. 10). He did not ask for God to reform him but to bring him into a new life experience. This holy cleansing is not to make his heart as good as it was previously but to make it better than it had ever been, not returning to the start but moving to another level.
Witness
Now living in the power of the Holy Spirit, David finds he is more able to be the witness God intended. He says, “I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you. . . my mouth will declare your praise. . .” (vs. 13,14). Later in the Bible, after the fullness of the Holy Spirit rested on the first disciples on the day of Pentecost, the first evidence that life had changed was their bold witness on the streets of Jerusalem among the very people who only weeks earlier had murdered Christ (Acts 2-3). While not everyone is an eloquent speaker when purified and empowered by the Holy Spirit, we can all say something to someone.
The conclusion of the psalm shows how very far David had come. When it opens, he was a rejected and dejected man. But at the end, he speaks of what God accepts. “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. . . You will delight in the sacrifices of righteousness. . .” (vs. 17,19).
The heart that is broken before the Lord is not only open to allow all the infection out but to allow the healing and purifying Spirit in. For many like David, it is the failure of trying to live Christianity on their own terms that brings a person to the brokenness that God uses to create a clean heart. Is your life found at the beginning of this psalm crying for mercy, or at the end, rejoicing in victory?
Corporate Prayer
Dear Lord, the example of David reminds us that we might be able to have an outward display of righteousness, but You are never fooled. And though You may have poured out Your blessing upon us, we are never in a place where sin cannot reach us if we turn away from You. But we thank You that just like with David, if we confess our sin, You will forgive and cleanse us and fill us once again with Your blessed Holy Spirit. Oh, God! Search my heart today! If there is anything that stands between You and me, please show me in this moment. Don’t let me be so foolish as to try to hide it from You. It is far better to be embarrassed, to suffer whatever consequences come from my foolishness than to have Your Spirit withdrawn from me. Let nothing unholy in me remain this day, dear God, for I pray it in the name of Your Son and my Savior who came to deliver us from all sin, Jesus Christ, my Lord. Amen.
Our Worldwide Prayer Meeting
Eastern Europe Territory
Thinking It Through
David's close relationship with God may have lulled him into thinking that he was "safe" enough to let down his guard when temptation came. Have you been surprised by a long forgotten temptation? Is a believer ever safe from sinning? What can we learn from David's path to restoration and cleansing?
Notable Quotables
Oh, from what heights of blessing it is possible for a man to fall! To what depths of sin a man can descend, even with all that spiritual background! The higher the pinnacle of blessing, authority, and publicity he has attained by grace, the deeper and more staggering can be his collapse. There is never a day in any man's life but that he is dependent upon the grace of God for power and the blood of Jesus for cleansing. - Alan Redpath
You can sing or just listen and follow the words to Albert Orsborn's moving song, "From a Hill I Know" and some additional melodies from The Salvation Army Oshawa Temple Corps in Canada
We would appreciate any feedback and/or suggestions on how to improve these devotionals. Please email comments to: SpiritualLifeDevelopment@uss.salvationarmy.org or by going to our website: https://southernusa.salvationarmy.org/uss/spiritual-life-development.
We would love to hear from you.