![]() All is to be received from the hand of God with thanksgiving. But the way in which God’s creation is received and used-the way in which your food and drink are consumed whether in faith and love, or in idolatry and unbelief-is measured by the Word of the Lord.Īll is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer. Neither fasting nor feasting make you righteous before God. Neither food nor drink can defile or cleanse you, damn you or save you. Sin and death are not found in food-gifts of God’s good creation. Like Shakespeare’s Lady McBeth, meticulous scrubbing could not erase the “damned spot” that exposed the guilty conscience. The “clean hands and pure heart” axiom of the traditions was built on false correlations. 7:15)After all, God Himself differentiated between clean and unclean animals, and gave specific dietary laws for His people. Given the way sin, death, Satan and hell came on stage in Eden’s Garden (Eve and Adam ate the forbidden fruit!)-Jesus’ teaching in today’s gospel jolts the Pharisee’s trust in tradition’s that will make you and keep you clean, i.e., “undefiled.” (Mk. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! (Psalms 51:2 -Introit) We will not lose salvation-sin will not separate the believer from God-but it can rob us of joy and the enjoyment of close fellowship with our Savior.Pentecost 15-B, Proper 17- CELC, Cleveland, OH. David could not enjoy God’s fellowship while he had unconfessed sin.Įven today, we can lose the joy of our salvation. When David pleads with God to “restore to me the joy of your salvation,” he is asking that he would again have the fellowship with God that he once knew and enjoyed. Psalm 32 ends with “Rejoice in the LORD and be glad, you righteous sing, all you who are upright in heart!” (verse 11). Whose sin the Lord does not count against them However, once he confessed his sin to God, he received forgiveness, and his joy returned. ![]() During that time, David suffered inner torment, as he describes in Psalm 32:3–4:ĭespite all the steps David had taken to suppress the news of what he had done, he did not experience joy in the cover-up. The time between David’s sin and Nathan’s confrontation was some months because the child had already been born. Next, David asks God to restore the joy of his salvation. If the Holy Spirit were removed from David, it would mean that he would be rejected by God as king in the same way that God had rejected Saul and removed His Spirit from him (1 Samuel 16:14). In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit usually came upon a person to enable the performance of a certain task. In verse 11 David asks that the Holy Spirit not be removed from him. Verses 10–12 are perhaps the most famous of Psalm 51:Īnd grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” You taught me wisdom in that secret place.Ĭleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb Sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Psalm 51 is a prayer of forgiveness and cleansing. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.” Psalm 51 is a song that David penned after this confrontation as noted in the title: “For the director of music. ![]() In 2 Samuel 12, the prophet Nathan confronts David with his sin, and David confesses (verse 14). But the last part of verse 27 contains this ominous declaration: “But the thing David had done displeased the Lord.” David then marries Bathsheba and believes that no one will ever know of his misdeeds. The sordid story involves not only adultery but Bathsheba’s pregnancy, an attempted cover-up, and David’s eventual murder of Bathsheba’s husband. ![]() That time came after the incident recorded in 2 Samuel 11 of David committing adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of one of his loyal soldiers. ![]() There was a time when King David asked God to restore to him the joy of his salvation. ![]()
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