Psalm 51:13-19 - "My Mouth Shall Show Forth Your Praise"
MAY 09, 2023
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“Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, And sinners shall be
converted to You. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, The God of my
salvation, And my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness. O Lord, open
my lips, And my mouth shall show forth Your praise.'


In this great prayer of confession and repentance that David poured out before
God, he first asked to be washed and cleansed (vv. 1-7). Then David prayed for
the Lord to renew and restore him by once again filling him with the Holy
Spirit (vv. 8-12). Now in verses 13-19, David is praying that God will use him
once again to teach others how to be forgiven of their sins and live for the
Lord.


As I begin to prepare for this chat today, I had a verse of Scripture that
immediately came to my mind in Isaiah 1:18. "Come now, and let us
reason together," Says the LORD, "Though your sins are like scarlet,
They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be
as wool.”  Isaiah lived over 500
years after the time of King David, and no doubt had access to Psalm 51. When
you read the entire first chapter of Isaiah you might get the idea that Isaiah
patterned his first message to an idolatrous and sinful nation from Psalm 51.


The people and religious leaders of Isaiah’s day were going through the outward
rituals of worship with their many sacrifices, but they had unconfessed sin in
their hearts.  They were committing
adultery on God as they shed the innocent blood of their children to the pagan
gods of the heathen around them. Adultery is known as the “scarlet sin” and
murder is “red like crimson”. 


The devil tries to convince you that you are so bad now that God won’t forgive you.
But God gives us an invitation to “come and reason with Him”. Like the
father in the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15, God is waiting with open
arms for you to return to Him today! He has already provided the sacrifice that
covers your sin, and He will cleanse you “as white as snow”, as if the
sin had never been committed in His sight (Romans 5:1).


It is really hard to be a witness to others when we have unconfessed sin in our
lives. But once we acknowledge our sin and ask forgiveness from the God we have
offended, and we experience His forgiveness we can’t wait to share with others
what He has done for us! God can’t use people to share His good news who think
they are perfect. He uses forgiven people who are now using their “tongue to
sing aloud of His righteousness” (v. 14), and their “lips and mouth that
show forth His praise” (v. 15).


Years ago, I wrote this quote in the front of my Bible: “This Book will keep you
from sin or sin will keep you from this Book!” Just like sin will keep you
from wanting to look into the mirror of God’s Word, it will also keep you from
being a witness to the lost world around you.


An amazing thing happens when we experience God’s forgiveness for our awful sins,
even as believers! Paul reminds us in Romans 5:20: “But where sin abound,
grace did much more abound”. What the devil intended for evil, God can
redeem and restore, and in His grace use for His glory.


It has always been so interesting to me that Solomon, the child eventually born to
Bathsheba, was chosen by God to be David’s successor and the one who would
supervise the temple construction. And on top of that, of all the sons of
David, Solomon would be in the line of Christ the Messiah. And Bathsheba would
also be mentioned in the genealogy of Christ in Matthew 1:6.


Today, if we will confess our sins, and experience God’s forgiveness and cleansing, He
will restore us in His grace.  And who
knows what amazing ways God might use us for His glory in sharing His story in
our lives with other sinners who desperately need His grace!


God bless!

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