Thorough Washing

Psalm 51:1–2 and the Promise of Forgiveness

Please turn your Bibles to Psalm chapter 51. That can be found on page 474, if you're using the Pew Bible. When you have that, please stand for the reading of God's word. To the choir master, a Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy. Blood out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. And cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me.

Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Behold, you delight in truth and the inward being. And you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness.

Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blood out all my iniquities. Create me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.

O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise. For you will not delight in sacrifice or I would give it. You will not be pleased with the burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God.

You will not despise. Do good to Zion in your good pleasure. Build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then you will delight in right sacrifices and burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings. Then boules will be offered on your altar.

Amen. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for this beautiful psalm that speaks to us of the wonders of forgiveness. David, in his incredible sin and your incredible restoration, we pray that today we would understand that forgiveness, that we would experience that washing from any sin we bring before you today, and that we would have this truth at the ready, that we might be quickly cleansed as we need it in the future.

In Jesus' name, amen. There are few truths as important as forgiveness in the Christian life. Few things that are so important to understand. It is at the very heart of our faith. It is that salvation around which all of Christian teaching is built.

And this psalm speaks in such a magnificent way of that wonderful salvation, of that forgiveness of sins. We're going to be looking today at the final phrase of the first verse, blot out my transgressions, and then the two phrases that go along with that, that re-explain that truth of blotting out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

David has appealed to the mercy of God. He needs God's mercy, has come to him for mercy, and now he describes that thing that he needs from the merciful hand of God. It is a blotting out of transgressions.

It is a washing thoroughly from iniquity. It is a cleansing from sin. First of all, he speaks of a blotting out of transgression. If you think about what blotting out refers to, it refers to ink on paper.

It refers to a ledger, a ledger that would have someone's debts written down, the ink blotting that out. This is one of the primary ways that we think about forgiveness. We owe a debt to God because of our sin.

Because of our sin, we owe our lives. Now, when I say that, that we owe our lives, that could be a little bit ambiguous because even as a saved people who have been forgiven, there's a sense in which we owe our lives to Jesus.

We have been saved by him. We are in his kingdom. We must give our lives in his service. Yet that's not the way that I'm talking about us by our sin, owing us, owing him our lives. We owe our lives by virtue of our sin, as in we owe all vitality, all the pleasantness of life.

Those who have sinned against him and do not have forgiveness, the debt that they owe is to pay him with all vitality, with all the pleasantness of life so that they would forever experience nothing but despair and misery.

Eternal Punishment and the Rejection of Annihilationism

This is contrary to what a lot of people think. There are a lot of people who are confused right now, not understanding the nature of God and so have begun affirming things like the idea of annihilationism, the idea that the soul would cease after death if it is wicked and that that is the only kind of way that they owe their life.

They just will cease to exist. The kind of vitality that is owed is not a cessation of existence. God has not described any such thing. It is instead all the pleasantness of life and all that being taken away, mankind, apart from any forgiveness, would experience just an eternal torment, an eternal misery before God for all his days.

But God, in his incredible mercy through Jesus Christ, for those who come to him, have their sins blotted out. They are no longer on the record so that they may be welcomed into his kingdom. Now, it goes on in this next two phrases that are grouped together in the second verse.

Blotting Out Guilt and Washing the Inner Person

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. Now, in some ways, when things are placed in parallel, it is designed to show that these are synonymous. In other ways, it's designed to show that they're different or that they're close synonyms, but point to different things.

This is talking about something different. The blotting out of a debt is not the only way that we should think of our forgiveness before God. There is, in addition to that blotting out of our debt, also this notion of washing.

That blotting out of a debt is something that happens outside of us, in God's ledger. The washing of sin is something that happens in us. These are two different things. Think about the nature of forgiveness with man.

If someone sins against you and you choose to forgive them, what happens in that moment? What happens when you overlook the offense? You change towards that person. You say, okay, you have offended me, whether it be a real sin against me, whether it be some other kind of wrong that was an accident that would still require forgiveness.

An example I tend to use is if you run into someone else's car, you would owe them a debt of money, even if it was a completely understandable accident. There's all kinds of ways that you could think about different sorts of forgiveness, but if someone sins against you, when you forgive them, you change your posture towards them.

Think about God. He is not one who can change. He is immutable. He is not capable of change. He is not like a creature that travels along the path of time. He is immutable. He does not change. So what does that mean when it comes to forgiveness?

To give you an analogy, the difference when you experience a change in God's disposition, it is not him changing, it is you changing. So for example, the sun is unchanging. It makes a corpse smell putrid.

It makes a flower smell sweet. What is the difference between those things? Is the sun different toward one than it is to the other? No, it is the experience of the sun toward one, towards the other. The change that's needed is not a change in God, like it's not a change in the sun.

It is rather a change in us that is needed. This forgiveness that God gives is in many ways different than the forgiveness that man can give, because God is not and cannot even change his disposition toward us.

He is of a holy nature, and he would not allow any sin before his eyes, before his presence, that he would countenance it, that he would shine his favor on man who is sinful. Instead, he changes man, and this is described as washing.

It is a washing that happens. So there is the blotting out that happens on the ledger outside of man, but then there is also the washing that happens within man. This is represented in the Old Testament by the ceremonial law.

For many of the different ceremonies, in order to be clean before God, in order for the sacrifices to be cleaned, in order for them to come before God and be sacrificed, certain parts of them had to be washed.

In order for the priest to stand before God, they had to go through ritual cleansings. Why are those sorts of things necessary? It is in order to illustrate the kind of cleansing that we need before God, that we must be transformed, that we must be washed.

This is something that many people recognize. Many people recognize that sin makes them feel dirty. It makes them feel guilty before him, and that is something that needs to be cleansed. It's not enough just to have something external changed.

Your own conscience must be purified. There must be a washing. Something that is interesting here too is that the word washing is not the kind of washing that describes the washing of a person. Okay, there are different words you would use for different things.

This is not the word that you would use to describe washing a person. This is the word for trampling. It literally says to trample, David, trample me. Now, why would that be? Why would they even translate it washing?

Well, this is the word that you would use to describe washing clothing. Okay, how do you wash clothing? You put it in some kind of agitator, right, like our washing machines, and you agitate it, you trample it.

You would put it in water in a bucket and you'd step on it until all the dirt comes out. Okay, that is the kind of washing that is being described here. It is an intense kind of washing that is needed for clothing.

It is also a washing that is described in a grammatically unusual way. It can't really be translated well into English, and maybe it doesn't even sound normal in Hebrew since I am not a native Hebrew speaker.

I cannot tell you how abnormal this sounds, but it's not even framed in a normal way. Wash me thoroughly. The word thoroughly is not an adverb. The word thoroughly is just another verb. One way you could try to translate this would be something like multiply to wash from my iniquity.

It's multiply, wash me, right? So many washings, many tramplings are needed. He wants to be thoroughly cleansed. Like sometimes when you have a very dirty outfit and you throw it in the washing machine, it's not good enough the first time, you have to throw it in again.

And he's describing again, again, again, in order that he would be washed, in order that he would be cleansed. This is what we need from God. Very simply, sin makes us filthy before God. That analogy is an excellent analogy to describe our position before God, the state of our souls because of sin.

We are filthy. If you think about what filthiness does to a person, filthiness makes him loathsome. Okay, when you go to some event and you are in filthy clothes, it would be loathsome to the people around you.

We had a wedding here yesterday. Imagine if I had shown up and, you know, mechanics overalls covered in oil and all kinds of filth. I had this just be, people would not be pleased with this. Yeah, it makes you loathsome to others.

Divine Holiness and the Loathsomeness of Sin

And it makes you loathsome to God. God does not permit any sin before his eyes, as it says in Habakkuk 1 .13. He is one who is holy, he is righteous. When sin comes before him, that sin feels his anger, his wrath.

What you have described in the Old Testament many times where sinful men are wrapped up into visions where they stand before the presence of God, there's billowing smoke representing God's holiness, or rather his holiness in contact with wickedness.

It is not something that can stand before him. It must fall before him. God, sin and God do not mix. It is loathsome to him. He despises it. Psalm 5 .5 says that he hates all evildoers. Once again, this is a truth that, I point out several truths that modern man has trouble wrestling with and so comes up with different ways of speaking of, well, this is a common phrase you hear.

God hates the sin, but not the sinner. Repeatedly in scripture, it says he hates the sinner. It says he hates all evildoers in Psalm 5 .5. That sin makes one loathsome before God. Makes one loathsome before others, especially righteous men.

Proverbs 29 .27 says that the unjust man is an abomination to the righteous. Those who are especially righteous find it difficult, even disgusting depending on how unrighteous someone is, depending on that chasm of that relative righteousness, cannot stand to be around someone who is unrighteous.

It is something that just makes you loathsome to others, and this is especially true in authority relationships. If you have someone who is under you in authority and they are a very unrighteous person, you would be disgusted by their sin, especially in as much as it affects your relationship with them.

If you have children and you see them sinning, while you may still love them, there is a great displeasure that comes from that. That's something to point out about our relationship with God. What I'm describing is not just about our relationship before being saved, even after being saved.

When we sin before him, it disfits us for a fullness of communion. Even though he loves us as a father, having brought us into his kingdom, we still come under his fatherly displeasure, just as you would love your own child and still be very displeased with them as they sin, so it is with him that in order to have the fullness of communion with him, we need to be washed, we need to be clean.

And think about those who would be over you. If you have someone over you who's sinning that is not befitting for someone who is in a high position, rulers who have histories of sin and who continue in sin are just very loathsome to people.

It's why many people do find our own ruler very loathsome is because of the many sins that have attended his life. This is just something that happens that even if a man has many good things about him, just some sin, especially a great sin that is not something that is known by others, makes him loathsome.

And then on top of that, even if it is a sin that's shared, think about a son who continues in his father's sin, recounting his father, maybe it's alcoholism or something like that, right? How do those children speak of their parents?

They're disgusted by their own parents and their own sin. Usually that shared quality of sin is not even met with an understanding or a willingness to accommodate, often it just increases the loathsomeness of it.

And this is something that makes us loathsome to our own selves too, filthy even to us. Lamentations 1 .8 says, Jerusalem sinned grievously, therefore she became filthy. All who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness.

She herself groans and turns her face away. You hear what this is describing? This is describing the sin of Jerusalem being so bad that Jerusalem herself can't stand herself. It is disgusting. This is what the experience of a person is, that as they sin before God, as they sense their own filth, they become loathsome even to yourself.

Almost certainly you've known some time in your life where your sins before God, you can sense it. And it's not just that you feel that your relationship with God is not right. You don't even enjoy your relationship that you have with your own self.

Many people talk about hating themselves. This is something that, in as much as that comes from filthiness, it's not something that is misplaced. It's something that is very rightly placed. It is right for sin to stir up that kind of feeling in you because it is a real filthiness.

Sin, Shame, and the Need for Cleansing

A good illustration for this, I think, is if you think about the nature of children and their clothing, right? When we talk about filthiness and we're talking about the kind of washing that's described here, the whole metaphor is of clothing.

Children do not, as their consciences are developing, now, children have consciences even from the beginning. I'm not going to deny that. I really hate the theology that would say children are only responsible for their actions and their thoughts much later on in life.

I've heard some people say, you know, as late as 12 years old or something like that. I'm not saying that, but a child's conscience, as it develops, is reflected in their understanding of their own clothing and their social position, right?

So in the garden, Adam and Eve, without guilt, didn't mind being naked. Once they had sinned before God, they mind being naked and they're ashamed. Think about how the child develops. As their conscience develops and their social awareness develops, they mind being naked around someone else.

They sense that there's something off about the situation and they must be covered. The same is true with filthiness. One thing that just boggles my mind every time I see it, you all know I have a lot of kids, so I've seen it a number of times, but it still just does not make sense to me, is how comfortable children are with being filthy, right?

They just do not care that they've got snot all over themselves. They do not care about all the food all over the shirt. They just don't care about these things. One time, I remember as a kid that I was friends with this family and there was a younger sibling who I was observing who just, he kept wiping his nose on his sleeve and he just had, I thought it looked like peanut butter.

Right, he was just so disgusting and I could not understand how someone just a few years younger than me could just have no sense of that. But as you grow older, you become aware of these things and it's not just that you mind it when you're around other people and then in private, you're totally fine.

Even with yourself, you can't stand to be filthy like that. This is the experience of one who has sinned before God. Even with yourself, you can't stand that filthiness. And so what is needed is washing.

One needs to be washed. They need to have their conscience cleansed. There are two different ways I would like you to think about this, that need for washing. One is how you would use things and one is how you would be used.

Now that might sound like a weird framework but I think it'll make sense in a second. Titus 1 .15, a verse that I've been mentioning often in the evening messages as we've been talking about moderation.

To the pure, all things are pure but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. This is the case for someone who has a defiled conscience. Nothing is really pure to them.

They aren't able to enjoy any of the blessings that God has given. Okay, he has created man and his kindness and he has given man many things to enjoy. Something I've been pointing out often in recent messages is that God has created man differently than the angels in a number of ways but one is he gave him needs in order that he might have those needs met and enjoy pleasures from God in a way that other creatures do not.

And this is a wonderful truth but man, in as much as he does not receive those things with thankfulness, in as much as he does not have a clean conscience before God to receive these things as he ought is not able to enjoy them fully as he ought.

And he might go to these things for pleasure and derive some kind of pleasure out of them but they are never really satisfactory to him. It's not something that really satisfies. You're familiar with the stereotype of the person who is kind of laden with guilt and so what do they do?

They go to the freezer, get out the ice cream and sit there and cry and eat the ice cream and does it make them feel any better? No, it doesn't. The ice cream doesn't even, I mean, it might taste okay but it doesn't taste good like it's supposed to taste good.

It's not like someone's celebrating by eating ice cream. Right, there's just a world of differences between those things. To the defiled, all things are defiled. If your conscience is not right before God, you can't enjoy the things that he has blessed you with.

At one point I read a short story about, it was this anthology about all these different characters and one of the character who lived in this little town that the anthology was about was such a disgusting person, I suppose, that even his mouth tasted bad to himself and he could not enjoy things.

So he would just always keep sugar pouches around with him so that whenever he ate, he could have that and keep his mouth tasting all right. This is what it's like to, this is what's needed. You cannot even enjoy the things around you.

You might enjoy them in some measure, in some ways but if you don't even know what's wrong, if you can't diagnose the problem and not understand why you're not getting the fullness of life, why you're not feeling the fullness of joy that God intended man to have, it's because of guilt.

It's because you need washing. Now the other half of that is being used, not just using things that God has blessed man with but being used by him. Second Timothy 2, 20 through 21 says, now in a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable.

Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work. God did not just create us to enjoy things in a purely consumptive way.

He also created us to enjoy things in a productive way, him working through us. Okay, so there's both these two halves of how he made us to consume and to produce. And he, both of those require being washed in order to have the fullness of them.

You have a purpose. You will not feel fulfilled until you fulfill that purpose. And you can only fulfill the fullness of that purpose by having holiness. Okay, there are different vessels in God's house for different uses.

You who are washed are able to do great and holy things. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.

Cleansing for Holy Use and True Fulfillment

Now, this first is focusing on our relation to sin, cleansing the self, but clearly there's a cleansing from God that is needed. We must be cleansed, our consciences must be cleared in order to be used before him.

You see this from all kinds of people. Those who do not have any kind of religion, it's amazing how they develop a religion of their own. All kinds of virtues and ideals that they pursue, causes that they get really excited about and invested in.

You can see it in all sorts of social causes, all sorts of environmental causes. It doesn't matter what it is. But people pursue that with a religious fervor. Why is because they need to feel some kind of mission, some kind of fulfillment.

You are not going to have the fullness of fulfillment apart from fulfilling what God has for you, what God has created for mankind in general and for you in particular. And you will not know that until you are washed in order to have that.

Happiness and holiness, these things go hand in hand. With holiness, you can have happiness, both in consuming and producing, both in using the things that God has given, enjoying those things and enjoying being used by him, him working through you.

Happiness and holiness go hand in hand. By happiness, I don't just mean this external sense of glee. What I'm talking about with happiness is a blessedness, a fulfillment, so that there is little lacking or nothing lacking in your experience.

It is all there. Happiness and holiness requires washing from God. And it is, of course, only God who can provide this washing. It is not something that man can do. Man may attempt to wash himself before God, but he is incapable.

Jeremiah 2 .22 says, "'Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, "'the stain of your guilt is still before me,' "'declares the Lord God.'". How do people try to wash themselves? They try to make up for it with good works, thinking that it all weighs on a balance.

That is not how it works, okay? It is a matter of washing. If you have dirty clothes and you try to add good clothes to it, how much does it clean the other clothes? It doesn't clean them at all. You need to be cleansed.

People might live in denial. They might try to get affirmation. They might even try to get affirmation from others. I think I may have mentioned this last week, but I'll mention it again. One thing that, one of the more surprising things that I've found as a pastor, and I've been a pastor for seven years now, is when I speak to someone who I'm not pastoring, someone who I didn't know before, and I talk to them, I said something similar to this.

I don't remember if it was the same thing. Oftentimes, I find that they will disclose sins to me with an attempt to get me to approve of them. They seem to be very eager to hear that they're okay, as though I'm some kind of priest that's gonna absolve them, make them feel good about their sins.

It doesn't matter. Even if you do get some holy person or supposed holy person to say that you are cleansed, man cannot cleanse. Another cannot cleanse you. You cannot cleanse yourself. That can only come from God.

It can only come from the blood of Jesus Christ. This passage goes on to talk about how that washing happens. Purge me with hyssop. The hyssop would apply the blood of consecration, the blood mingled with the water.

Jesus, the water, the blood mingled coming from his side. It is the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses. Now you think of blood as something that stains, but for him, it is a blood that cleanses from our sins.

Every Psalm Points to Christ

He has borne the penalty in our place, not only blotting out our transgressions, but also providing for us a complete washing, a washing of sin. This is a profound truth, and it is one that each week I'm trying to come up with more ways of revealing this truth to you.

But one thing that you should know is that these psalms always, always prophesy the Messiah. You'll see what I'm getting at in a second, hopefully. There are some people who point out different psalms as being messianic psalms that prophesy the Savior.

You know, Psalm 22, Psalm 2, you know, let the nations be shattered, the rod of iron, et cetera. The reality is every single psalm is messianic. Every single psalm speaks of Christ. Now you might look at this one and say, this is talking about David sinning great sins before God.

How does this speak of Jesus Christ? Especially if David, as the father of the Messiah, is supposed to represent the Messiah. How does this speak to that? Second Samuel 7, 14, God speaks to David. He tells him how he is going to give him a son who is going to sit on the throne forever.

Now, Solomon in many ways prefigures this, but cannot fulfill it fully because he does not sit on the throne forever. It's Jesus Christ who sits on the throne forever. He is that son who is prophesied.

But what does it say in this prophesy about the relationship of that one to sin? I'll begin reading at verse 13 so you can get some of the context. He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the son of men. How does this speak of Christ? Well, he has not committed his own iniquity, but he has borne our sin in our place so that what was experienced on the cross was the punishment that was owed for that sin.

But then on top of that, this is also spoken of by way of cleansing and discipline. It continues on and says, but my steadfast love will not depart from him as I took it from Saul whom I put away from before you.

And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever. So in this prophecy, one of the most direct prophecies about Christ, the Davidic covenant, David being told that he's going to have a son that's going to sit on the throne forever, in it is spoken of his relationship to iniquity.

When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him, yet my steadfast love will not be removed from him. What is this describing? This is describing through Christ, perfect obedience to the Lord, him bearing our sins and yet being upheld not in a way where he would be destroyed as sin ought to be, but because of his nature, because of his excellent value as the son of God, he is upheld.

He does not lie under that wrath forever, but is raised from the dead. And he himself even raises him from the dead by the spirit is raised from the dead. We being joined together with him, raised from the dead, having new life, us being cleansed with him.

That union produces not only that legal status of having our transgressions blotted out, it makes us washed because what Christ experienced as he suffered that sin being placed on him and the wrath that is due to that sin, all of that taken away.

It does not still abide on him. Okay, those sins, he is not still filthy, though he took on our filthiness. And because he has been washed and we joined with him, we are washed by him. It says in John 17 that he was consecrated by his own blood.

I'm paraphrasing, but this is what it's talking about. He, in his prayer describes how he is going to consecrate himself. And then in Hebrews 10, it talks about this more, him being consecrated by his blood.

We are likewise when joined with him, consecrated by his blood. He has provided for us a washing that we receive as united with him. This is another similar truth to help you wrap your mind around this.

He is the only begotten son of God. Okay, he is the only one, only son, and yet we are called sons of God. How is it that we are called sons of God if he's the only son of God? Well, united with him, we have the legal status of being a son of God.

But is it just a legal status or has he not also given us his spirit by which we have the sense of being a son and we stand before him like a child, going before him, bringing our requests, understanding his love as a child understands that love?

So that adoption that happens, happens through union with Jesus Christ because he is the only son. And yet we paradoxically may be called sons because we are in him. And it's not just a legal status, it's also something real objectively that is accomplished in us as we experience it.

All that loathsomeness taken away, not by us just reminding ourselves of this thing outside of us, that legal debt being taken away, but by God himself giving us a spirit to cleanse the conscience that we might stand before him without shame because we are washed.

That relationship to man and to God changed. Now, it may be still the case that you as a righteous person be loathsome to the wicked. That is natural. But to the righteous, you will be pleasant. To God, you will be pleasant.

To yourself, your own experience of life, a pleasant thing, not something loathsome anymore. You being able to enjoy the things that God has given to man to enjoy in the fullness of the way there to be enjoyed.

You fulfilling God's purposes for you in the fullness of the way that it's meant to be fulfilled. All of this. And this is something that is not just, once again, not just a one-time thing because God has blotted out transgression.

Your past, present, and future sins, he has blotted those out. But as we sin before him, we need his washing in order to have the fullness of that fellowship restored. This is something that you are to experience over and over, weekly and weekly, week after week, as we come before him and we pray the Lord's Prayer and we ask for forgiveness of sins.

It is because we need that washing from him. And on that final day, when we pass from this earth, we will experience that last trampling, that last washing, where our own bodies, the last of that corruption that remains within us is removed away.

He will raise our bodies that we might be not unclothed, but further clothed, as it is described in 2 Corinthians. This is the excellent promise that he has given of washing, a clear conscience, a clear conscience before him.

Discerning Sin Through God's Law and Humility

I want to leave you with a couple of thoughts about discerning the nature of sin and discerning your guilt, your filthiness, and also discerning the forgiveness, the cleansing that God will give you. How is it that you go about discerning your filthiness?

First of all, familiarize yourself with the law of God. This is how you are going to know these things. David is one who, in Psalm 119, it describes him as being very familiar with the law of God. This was a student of the word.

How is it that he's so readily corrected by Nathan when so few people can handle rebuke? So few people can. He is familiar with the law of God. I think frequently from this pulpit, I have recommended different resources on the Ten Commandments, whether they be books like Thomas Watson's, whether they just be our catechism questions, but whether they be the longer version of the catechism questions, the Westminster larger catechism.

All these things, in whatever level would be suitable for you, very helpful. If you do not meditate on the law of God, you will not sense these things as you ought. Your conscience will be seared rather than cleansed.

You do not want a seared conscience where you're not feeling the filthiness just because it's seared. You want a clean conscience, and that comes by having a working conscience that's able to feel that filthiness in order that you would have it corrected.

Otherwise, you're like the child that doesn't mind being filthy, but you're doing that as an adult that is not a healthy state of affairs. Second, you need humility. You need to recognize who you are.