The Prelude To Genuine Salvation

14 Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
The God of my salvation,
And my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips,
And my mouth shall show forth Your praise.
16 For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it;
You do not delight in burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,
A broken and a contrite heart—
These, O God, You will not despise.

(Verse 14) - Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God – Literally, in Hebrew, “bloods.” Many versions and authors render it “blood-guilt.” Some others, “from blood.” (Compare Isa. 4:4). The “plural” form - “bloods” - is used probably to mark “intensity,” or to denote “great” guilt, not necessarily to more than one instance of such guiltiness. The allusion is to the guilt of shedding blood, or taking life (compare Gen. 9:5-6), and the reference is undoubtedly to his guilt in causing Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba, to be slain. (2 Sam. 11:14-17). It was this which weighed upon his conscience, and filled him with alarm. The guilt of this he prayed might be taken away, that he might have peace. The “fact” of the shedding of that blood could never be changed; the real “criminality” of that fact would always remain the same; the “crime” itself could never be declared to be innocence; his own personal “ill desert” for having caused the shedding of that blood would always remain; but the sin might be pardoned, and his soul could thus find peace.  There was no human solution to this problem and to the guilt or to the emotional and spiritual distress it caused David.  Here we see David facing this and realizing (and confessing) that the only solution lies with God.

The penalty might be remitted, and, though guilty, he might be assured of the divine favor. He could not, indeed, repair the evil to Uriah - for “he” had gone beyond the power of David for good or for evil - but he could do much to express his sense of the wrong; he could do much to save others from a similar course; he could do much to benefit society by keeping others from the like guilt. He could not, indeed, recall Uriah from the grave, and repair the evil which he had done to “him,” but he might save others from such a crime, and thus preserve many a useful life from the effects of unrestrained guilty passions. We cannot, indeed, by penitence recall those whom we have murdered; we cannot restore purity to those whom we have seduced; we cannot restore faith to the young man whom we may have made a skeptic; but we may do much to restrain others from sin, and much to benefit the world even when we have been guilty of wrongs that cannot be repaired.

He had been the means of the death of Uriah, the Hittite, a faithful and attached follower, and he now confesses that fact. Besides, his sin of adultery was a capital offence, and he puts himself down as one worthy to die the death. Honest penitents do not fetch a compass and confess their sins in an elegant periphrasis, but they come to the point, call a spade a spade, and make a clean breast of all. What other course is rational in dealing with the Omniscient?

Thou God of my salvation - On whom I am dependent for salvation; who art alone the source of salvation to me.  This is a place that all men must come to; else they fail to attain to salvation at all.  This is not merely a good place to be, it is an essential place to get to!  Until a man realizes that God, and God alone is his salvation – he cannot become a Christian!

Note that there is a new, personal and familiar, intense note to his prayer at this point; he had not ventured to come so near before. It had been, “O God,” up till now, but here he cries, “Thou God of my salvation.” Faith grows by the exercise of prayer. He confesses sin more plainly in this verse than before, and yet he deals with God more confidently: growing upward and downward at the same time are perfectly consistent. None but the King can remit the death penalty, it is therefore a joy to faith that God is King, and that he is the author and finisher of our salvation.

And my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness – (Compare Ps. 35:28).  One would rather have expected him to say, I will sing of thy mercy; but David can see the divine way of justification, that righteousness of God which Paul afterwards spoke of by which the ungodly are justified, and he vows to sing, yea, and to sing lustily of that righteous way of mercy. After all, it is the righteousness of divine mercy which is its greatest wonder. The two are inextricably intertwined.  God cannot act in mercy, except it be done according to righteousness.  The two go hand in hand.  Mercy cannot come apart from righteousness coming as well.  That is why there was the need for the cross as well as for the cradle.  Christ had not come, and He had to come to die!

Note how David would preach in the last verse, and now here he would sing. We can never do too much for the Lord to whom we owe more than all. If we could be preacher, presenter, doorkeeper, foot-washer, and all in one, all would be too little to show forth all our gratitude. A great sinner pardoned makes a great singer. Sin has a loud voice, and so should our thankfulness have. We shall not sing our own praises if we be saved, but our theme will be the Lord our righteousness, in whose merits we stand righteously accepted.

(Verse 15) - O Lord, open thou my lips - That is, by taking away my guilt; by giving me evidence that my sins are forgiven; by taking this burden from me, and filling my heart with the joy of pardon. The original word is in the future tense, but the meaning is well expressed in our common translation. There was, in fact, at the same time a confident expectation that God “would” thus open his lips, and a desire that he should do it.  The idea is that he is so afraid of himself that he commits his whole being to the divine care, and fears to speak till the Lord unstops his shame–silenced mouth. How marvelously the Lord can open our lips, and what divine things we poor simpletons pour forth under his inspiration! This prayer of a penitent is a golden petition for a preacher. Lord, I offer it for myself and my brethren. But it may stand in good stead any one whose shame for sin makes him stammer in his prayers, and when it is fully answered, the tongue of the dumb begins to sing.

And my mouth shall show forth thy praise - Or, I will praise thee. Praise is the natural expression of the feelings when the sense of sin is removed.  If God opens the mouth he is sure to have the fruit of it. According to the porter at the gate is the nature of that which comes out of man’s lips; when vanity, anger, falsehood, or lust unbar the door, the foulest villainies troop out; but if the Holy Spirit opens the wicket, then grace, mercy, peace, and all the graces come forth in tuneful dances, like the daughters of Israel when they met David returning with the Philistine’s head.

(Verse 16) - For thou desirest not sacrifice … - On the words rendered in this verse “sacrifice” and “burnt-offering,” see our notes at Isa. 1:11. On the main sentiment here expressed - that God did not “desire” such sacrifices - see Ps. 40:6-8. The idea here is, that any mere external offering, however precious or costly it might be, was not what God required in such cases. He demanded the expression of deep and sincere repentance; the sacrifices of a contrite heart and of a broken spirit: (Ps. 51:17). No offering without this could be acceptable; nothing without this could secure pardon. In mere outward sacrifices - in bloody offerings themselves, unaccompanied with the expression of genuine penitence, God could have no pleasure. This is one of the numerous passages in the Old Testament which show that the external offerings of the law were valueless unless accompanied by the religion of the heart; or that the Jewish religion, much as it abounded in forms, yet required the offerings of pure hearts in order that man might be acceptable to God. Under all dispensations the real nature of religion is the same. (Compare Heb. 9:9-10). The phrase “else would I give it,” expresses a willingness to make such an offering, if it was required, while, at the same time, there is the implied statement that it would be valueless without the heart.

This was the subject of the last Psalm. The Psalmist was so illuminated as to see far beyond the symbolic ritual; his eye of faith gazed with delight upon the actual atonement. “Else would I give it.” He would have been glad enough to present tens of thousands of victims if these would have met the case, if they had been sufficient to relieve his guilt and remove his stain of sin. Indeed, anything which the Lord prescribed he would cheerfully have rendered. We are ready to give up all we have if we may but be cleared of our sins; and when sin is pardoned our joyful gratitude is prepared for any sacrifice. “Thou delightest not in burnt offering.” He knew that no form of burnt sacrifice was a satisfactory propitiation. His deep soul–need made him look from the type to the antitype, from the external rite to the inward grace.

(Verse 17) - The sacrifices of God - The sacrifices which God desires and approves; the sacrifices without which no other offering would be acceptable. God does require sacrifice, but it is a sacrifice of a certain kind and character, one which was beyond David’s ability to offer as a human being.  Again, we  note that his is why there was both a cradle and a cross – because Christ was the only One Who could offer the appropriate and sufficient sacrifice to actually remove guilt!  David felt that that which he here specified was what was demanded in his case. He had grievously sinned; and the blood of animals offered in sacrifice could not put away his sin, nor could anything remove it unless the heart was itself penitent and contrite. The same thing is true now. Though a most perfect sacrifice, every way acceptable to God, has been made for human guilt by the Redeemer, yet it is as true as it was under the old dispensation in regard to the sacrifices there required, that even that will not avail for us unless we are truly penitent; unless we come before God with a contrite and humble heart.  Spurgeon said: “All sacrifices are presented to thee in one, by the man whose broken heart presents the Savior’s merit to thee. When the heart mourns for sin, thou art better pleased than when the bullock bleeds beneath the axe.”

“A broken heart” is an expression implying deep sorrow, embittering the very life; it carries in it the idea of all but killing anguish in that region which is so vital as to be the very source of life. So excellent is a spirit humbled and mourning for sin, that it is not only a sacrifice, but it has a plurality of excellencies, and is pre–eminently God’s “sacrifices.”

Are a broken spirit - A mind broken or crushed under the weight of conscious guilt. The idea is that of a burden laid on the Soul until it is crushed and subdued.  This is the Old Testament expression of the concept in the Sermon on the Mount of being “Poor in Spirit”.  It is the realization that one has nothing, not little, but nothing to commend one to God and that one must appeal entirely to His mercy and grace if one is to survive the day.  This is not speaking of defeat or sadness, but of a coming to of the place of recognize one’s own paucity of spiritual resource and see, truly, one’s destitution before God.  Once again we note, this is a painful place, but a good place to come to, because it is from here, and only from here that we can step into God’s grace.

A broken and a contrite heart - The word rendered contrite means to be broken or crushed, as when the bones are broken, (Ps. 44:19; 51:8); and then it is applied to the mind or heart as that which is crushed or broken by the weight of guilt. The word does not differ materially from the term “broken.” The two together constitute intensity of expression. 

One writer said: “A heart crushed is a fragrant heart.” Men contemn those who are contemptible in their own eyes, but the Lord seeth not as man seeth. He despises what men esteem, and values that which they despise.

Thou wilt not despise - Thou wilt not treat with contempt or disregard. That is, God would look upon them with favor, and to such a heart he would grant his blessing. (See Isa. 57:15; Isa. 66:2).

Never yet has God spurned a lowly, weeping penitent, and never will he while God is love, and while Jesus is called the man who receives sinners. Bullocks and rams he desires not, but contrite hearts he seeks after; yea, but one of them is better to him than all the varied offerings of the old Jewish sanctuary.  This is the cry of the Gospel.  Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest! 

This must be the cry of my own heart and ministry as well!