‘Hide Your Face’

Hide Your face from my sins, And blot out all my iniquities.

Psalm 51:9

As David continues his earnest plea for forgiveness, he continues to give evidence of his excellent understanding of the Character of God. In our text for today he requests that God would, ‘Hide Your face from my sins….’  This brings to mind the words which Habakkuk would pen later, when he would say, ‘You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, And cannot look on wickedness.’  God cannot look upon sin with complacency. If He is to ‘hide’ His Face from David’s sins, how will He do so? As long as God ‘looks’ upon David’s sin, He must disapprove. If He is to ‘hide’ His Face from David’s sin, He must be able to ‘look’ elsewhere. Where will He ‘look?’ God the Father will look at Christ. If God is to ‘hide’ His Face from our sins, it must be because of the Person and Work of Christ, ‘For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.’ We look to Christ as our Prophet, our Priest, and our King. God the Father also looks to Christ as our Prophet, our Priest, and our King. By looking to Christ, God the Father can effectively ‘hide His Face from our sins.’  What David is praying, is entirely correct, based upon the Character of God and the role of Christ. When we have sinned against God, we desire that He would hide His Face from our sins. As we come to understand Him more, we value Christ more, Who effects what is necessary for God to ‘hide’ His Face from our sins.

Our Wise and Righteous God,
we praise You that You ever look to Christ.
We rejoice that He is the reason that You can look upon us
and consider us as righteous.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

Broken Bones Rejoicing

Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones You have broken may rejoice.

Psalm 51:8

We arrive at what is, in many ways a hard concept for us to countenance. As David pleads for God to forgive him for his high-handed sin, he says ‘Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones You have broken may rejoice.’ We have discussed the first part. The second part requires some wisdom to understand and to present. Perhaps the best way to achieve clarity is to bring Scripture to bear on Scripture. Job records for us, ‘Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects; Therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty. For He bruises, but He binds up; He wounds, but His hands make whole.’  While this is a part of the speech of one of Job’s friends, we find that other passages of Scripture support it. When others sinned, God did chasten them and afflict them until they repented. Proverbs tells us that, ‘a soft tongue breaks the bone.’ The quiet conviction of the whispering of the Holy Spirit is enough to ‘break the bone.’ David is pleading for total restoration. It takes a long time for a broken bone to heal. It takes even longer for it to have great enough strength for that bone to ‘rejoice,’ or be stronger than it was before the breaking of it. David was pleading for that kind of healing and restoration. This is the kind of miracle which only Christ can perform. Over and over Christ restored people to far better than they were before He intervened. It is so in spiritual restoration. Christ alone can produce the restoration we need when we have sinned greatly against Him. He is the Great Physician. As we consider these things today, let us dwell upon the fact that Christ is the answer to our most painful and desperate condition. Today, let us look to Christ to ‘make us to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which you have broken may rejoice.’ He has broken. He will heal.

Our Gracious, Healing God,
we rejoice that You wound and that You heal.
We praise You that You will enable us to return to
greater health and strength than we enjoyed
before we sinned against You.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

Hearing Joy and Gladness

Make me hear joy and gladness, That the bones You have broken may rejoice.

Psalm 51:8

What does a grieving errant child, who has done wrong, long to hear from the lips of the father? He wants to hear, ‘I forgive you.’ That brings joy and gladness to the child’s heart. In confessing his sin, David has occupied the place of the penitent child. He did wrong, knew it, owned it, and confessed it. He has pled for mercy and cried for cleansing. He wants things to be right between him and his Heavenly Father. He arrives at our text for today and as the Irish saying goes, ‘is not backward in coming forward’ to speak of what he most desires. He wants to ‘hear joy and gladness.’ This will only come as he is certain of the restoration of fellowship with God. We have established over the past days that this restoration only comes by the mediatorial work of Christ. Apart from Christ, we have no relationship with God. When we have lost the fellowship of that relationship, because of our sin, it is only the cleansing of the Blood of Christ that will restore it. Therefore, we fly to the Blood of Christ for cleansing, so that we may ‘hear joy and gladness.’ Today, let us look to the Christ Who is the key to our relationship with the Eternal God. Let us seek the cleansing of the Blood, that we may ‘hear joy and gladness.’

Our Loving and Kind Father,
we rejoice that You greet us with open arms.
We praise You that Christ is the road, by which we come again,
to our Father’s house.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

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‘Purge Me… Wash Me’

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Psalm 51:7

David needed cleansing. He had stolen another man’s wife and then arranged the man’s murder. He had passed the man’s death off very glibly by saying, ‘The, word devours one as well as another.’ Now, David was bearing the weight of his bloodguiltiness. He has made full confession. He has owned his sin. He has traced it to its’ source. We wants cleansing from God. How will he get it? Our text declares, ‘Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.’ To what does David refer? The first mention of hyssop, a plant of the mint family, is in Exodus 12. There God prescribes the use of it in the application of the blood of the Lamb on the evening of the first Passover. Therefore, David is referring to the cleansing which is related to the application of the blood. He further confirms that when he speaks of God’s washing of him so that he can be ‘whiter than snow.’ Again he refers to cleansing by the blood. Hebrews confirms this by saying, ‘Therefore not even the first covenant was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you.” Then likewise he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.’ The writer of Hebrews, within the context, relates this directly to the Blood of Christ. Here is where David landed. Here is where we land. When we have sinned against God and want cleansing, we find that cleansing in the Blood of Christ. This is how God purges us with hyssop and washes us that we may be ‘whiter than snow.’ Today we look to the Blood of Christ to cleanse us from every earth-gathered stain.

Our Almighty Redeeming God,
we praise You that You have power
to cleanse us from every stain.
We rejoice that there is a fountain opened
for us for sin and for uncleanness.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

By Nature and By Grace

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.

Psalm 51:5-6

David understood human depravity in the first person. Our text for today lies in two distinct parts. David declared what he was by nature and what he would be by Free and Sovereign Grace. When he says, ‘Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me,’ he is not insulting his mother’s morality, but alluding to the universal human condition of utter depravity. As the old saying goes, ‘In Adam’s fall, we sinned all.’ We are sinners by nature and by choice. David’s sin was the outgrowth of his natural depravity and his own lustful choice. He owns it and identifies the source of it. By contrast, he understands what God desires. We see in the second portion of our text, ‘Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, And in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.‘ David recognizes what God wants and that it is utterly beyond human ability to render it. This brings us to the fact that salvation is from start to finish, the work of God. Justification is an act of God’s free grace. Adoption is an act of God’s free grace. Sanctification is a work of God’s free grace. All of these are inextricably related to the Person and Work of Christ. The ‘truth’ that God desires is the result of the work of the Holy Spirit in making us like Christ. The wisdom we ‘know’ is what the spirit shows us of Christ. This makes the difference between what we are by nature and what we become by Grace.

Our Wonder-working God,
we praise You that You reach us in our depravity
and transform us by Your Power.
We rejoice that You will utterly transform us
and make us like Christ.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning