***Psalm 51***
Verse 10
*
~Create in me a clean heart,~
O God;
and renew a right spirit within me.
(King James Version)
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Grace be unto you from me my beloved Christian brothers & sisters. Let us thank God once again for allowing us to meet through this group in the fellowship of His Word. Take out some time in your daily schedule to give Him praise & glory for all He has done for you. Giving thanks to all of you that shared a viewpoint in the past week. More & more members are sharing thoughts & I am truly blessed to read them & the sharing with others in the group. Keep them coming & may those of you who are not participating, find it in your heart to do so. Dear friends have you ever done something or know someone who has, that you felt, you/they were going to get away with it? God seemed to be non-existent & His eyes were not following the act? Out of the fog of deception you/they were faced with the issue & from a source not thought of, would make you/they stand up & take notice? If we will be honest & true to ourselves, all of us at one time or another has done something, only to find we could not hide from God &
the sin would be exposed.
O dear friends, let us just take a moment to say:
"Thank You Lord"
For not destroying us for our sins, but your everlasting mercy & grace shall abound with us to the end.
(Lamentations 3:22)
For this brings me to my topic this week:
(White as Snow)
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Snow is so white that one can see almost anything that is dropped on it, even at a great distance. Even newly washed clothing still looks dirty in comparison. Dear Christian friends our lives are so much like that. At times we think of ourselves as morally good & decent;
we are content in saying to one another:
"I am not like other men"
O, but compared to God's purity, we are defiled & filthy.
God still loves us unconditionally & He provided for us a purity we could never attain on our own. He gave His Son, Jesus Christ to die on the cross & only when our sins have been washed in the blood of Jesus Christ, will we appear as white as snow in the eyes of God.
Thank God for evermore that now you are whiter than snow.
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David pleaded to God to purge him with hyssop, that he would be clean. Hyssop:(a plant), dipped in blood, during the Passover was used by Moses & the Israelites to wipe the posts of the doors
(Exodus 12:22)
&
David identified this with the inward cleansing of his being. We at one time or another have heard the story of David & Bathsheba, & I shall move on to the theme of the topic. David had lusted after her as often we do for things or someone & he conceived a child with her. In his lust for her, he forgets what is due to the faithful soldier whose wife she is.
Dear friends, are you getting the picture?
OK!
Trying to cover up his sin, he tried to get her husband
(Uriah: Hebrew meaning, The Lord is Light)
to come & enjoy a feast he has prepared for him, in that, when he was finished he would go & lay with his wife & then David could pin the child on him. O, dear friends what evil deceptions we plan in our mess. Uriah decided not to go, for he thought it was not good to do that since his men were in battle. Next plan, David sent a note with Uriah, o people, to Joab, a captain in David's army, that would allow him to be in the forefront of the battle & then draw back from him. Joab, his confidant in sin, his partner in murder, planned the demise of Uriah, in that, he observed the city & placed Uriah where he knew valiant men would be & there Uriah died in battle. David's sin was more terrible, for he was the head of the nation. The excellent services of Uriah entitled him to rewards not death. Not knowing any of this, once the wife of Uriah heard this, she mourned. After this David took her to be his wife. O dear friends, will you go back & read what I wrote above, that we think God is not watching & is pleased in our sinful acts.
****God Was Not****
As I stated earlier we don't know when & how we will be faced with our own penalty of sin & God knows how to get our attention.
He knows where we live dear friends.
God sent Nathan,
(Hebrew name means: God has given)
a prophet of God with a parable to David, he served David & would later serve his son Solomon, stating: that there were two men in a city, one poor, one rich. The rich man had many flocks & herds & the poor man had one little ewe lamb, that had become part of the family. A man came to the rich man, a way-fairing man & he spared his flocks & herds to dress for him & took the poor man's ewe lamb & slayed it. O friends, here comes David's arrogance & Nathan asked David, what should be done to such a man?
David answered unto Nathan,
"this man should surely be put to death"
And Nathan said to David:
"You Are The Man"
We must humble ourselves in our sin when brought face to face.
He had everything already, yet not satisfied & wanted another man's wife, he sinned against God, Bathsheba, his body, his family, his men, even the nation he led.
(II Samuel 12:1-9)(I Corinthians 6:11)
David was a broken hearted man, for he knew he had offended the Creator, the one whom he loved so much.
This was as in our lives a crushing moment for him.
We see in the text that the child he conceived with Bathsheba died later.
"A living sorrow is worse than a dead one"
The death of that child was a grievous sorrow unto him, but the living sorrow soon to follow him in his son Absalom we cannot imagine.
(II Samuel Chapters 13-19)
God pronounced that the sword would not depart from his house & O dear friends, it never did. David reaped a long & bitter harvest for his sin.
(Galatians 6:8)
What a lesson that we cannot get away with sin unto God, my Christian brothers & sisters. David had accepted his punishment & worshipped God. He stood between Abraham & Christ & through his many faults, he kept the nation from idolatry & stood like a rock for Jehovah. He was a great saint, even though he was a great sinner.
Read
(II Samuel Chapters 11-21)
to see all of David's troubles.We sometimes in our arrogance, will say that someone else's sin is so bad, but in our own, we say we are just weak.
Do You Know Someone Like That?
David was now ready for the mercy of God.
Psalm 51 is the Chief Psalm of penitence as David wrote one of the most beautiful pieces of all literature. He tried to, as we do sometimes to make an excuse for our/his sinful nature as we are born into sin,
(Romans 3:10)
but dear friends, like David, he recognized as we do also, when we have done wrong, it is not because we are born into sin,
but out of our sinful acts.
(Am I Right About It?????)
David did not try to dodge the issue & uttered:
"I have sinned against God"
(II Samuel 12:13)
We think it strange when we read that David was a man after his (God's) own heart. If we compare to what other kings would have done under the same circumstances, we are not surprised, but David confessed. We must confess our sins before God & He is not fooled in our sincerity.
(I Epistle John 1:9)
I want to address another point in that David cried unto God that he had sinned only against Him, but dear friends when we sin, it not only against God, but our brothers & sisters as well. You see, David had broken two commandments, in committing adultery & murder, those sins were against Uriah, her husband. We should read this Psalm often as it is of confession & contrition. He cried unto the God whom he knew is full of mercy & full of loving kindness. David went to God as we should in every circumstance in prayer. His two great accomplishments were: the Kingdom & the Psalms.
~Sin is-breaking God's law~
We should ask God to create in us everyday a clean heart, for we sin daily. Never neglect prayer & watching, do not entertain sin, even in thought, for it does not take a whole box of matches to start a fire.
One will do it!
Pray for one another in the uplifting of spirit & healing. If this has been a beacon of light for any of you, please send me a note of reflection. As always, if any of you wish to be opted from the group, send me a note & I will delete your name, as I wish not to offend anyone.
May God always walk with you & you with God. I hope that the link pages, especially the Ole Time Hymn page,
I have created for you to view, will bless you as it has me.
Peace
Don
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A-ll
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