And this is Leslie Curran saying hello and welcome in the Saviour's name to our Gospel Broadcast. I'm glad you're joining us today and here to let the Bible speak is the Reverend John Greer. Thank you Mr Curran, it is my great joy and pleasure to be on the airwaves once again to bring to you God's Word and I pray that today the Lord will draw near and will meet with us as we come to his truth once again.

I want to turn your attention to the book of Psalms today and to the Psalm number 51 and the verse number 17. It says, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. This Psalm, Psalm 51 was written by David after he had been visited by Nathan the prophet.

The prophet came to David to challenge him concerning his sin and as a consequence of that challenge and the gritty fact that it had upon his heart, David penned this penitential Psalm. And as we come to verse 17, we really come to the climax of what David wrote on that occasion when the Lord dealt with him and showed him his need to turn away from his sin and seek afresh the mercy and the grace of the Lord. And as we consider this verse, we notice that there is a very clear theme contained within it, that is the theme of the broken and the contrite heart.

We notice here the penitence of the broken and the contrite heart because these very terms, broken and contrite, bring to our attention the issue of David's penitence over his sin. The terms are indicative of a heart in which there is true repentance. The word broken means to be shattered and the word contrite signifies that which is bruised and crushed.

And therefore, David's heart had been brought to this place of penitence, this condition of penitence, as he was brought under the word of God revealing his sin and revealing the terrible nature of it. And therefore, the fact that it was a penitent heart, this broken and contrite heart, is evidenced by the full confession that David made before the Lord. He confessed his sin freely as the Psalm shows.

Down through the verses, we find that step by step there was a pouring out of true confession before the Lord. For example, you'll notice that in his penitence, David confessed the depravity of his sin. In verse 5, he says, Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

In this verse, he goes to the very fountainhead of his sin and he freely confesses that it was a polluted source. Now, he's talking here about his conception and his being born into this world. And he was born, of course, of a godly mother.

David's mother is described in Psalm 86 as the handmaid of the Lord. We know as well that his father was a man of God, as the book of 1 Samuel and other places make very clear. And David, therefore, was born of a chaste marriage, of a good parentage, and yet he has to confess here that there was within him, from the very earliest days of his existence, a fallen nature.

He goes back here to the origin and the conception of life and existence, and he discovers and he confesses that the tap roots of sin are to be traced to that very point. Therefore, the fact in which he focuses and that he confesses is the depravity of his sin in that it flowed from the corrupt nature within him. Man has a corrupt nature.

Man has, therefore, a depraved nature. There is no good thing in the flesh, Paul tells us, that is the fleshly nature. And this is a basic fact to any understanding of our need as sinners before a holy God.

It is elementary to the very gospel revealed in the word of God. The Lord came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. And the starting point in any real confession out of a broken and a contrite heart is this very point where David confesses the depravity of his sin.

I pray that today the Lord will let you see that you are as an unclean thing, that all your righteousnesses are as filthy rags, that there is nothing good in you with regard to spiritual matters and even with regard to your moral condition before God. Your heart is full of sin, violent full of sin, the true that is. And we must come to see these things and understand, therefore, our need of true confession before God and true penitence before God in that confession of the depravity of our sin and our nature before the Lord.

In his penitence, David also confesses the diversity of his sin. In the psalm, he uses various words with regard to his wrongdoing, and he penitently cries to the Lord and uses these words one after the other, revealing that he had a true view of his sin in the sight of God. There are three words in the early verses of the psalm, each of which has a different meaning, each one setting forth a different aspect of the sin over which David is truly penitent.

The word for sin is found in verses 3, 4, and 5. The

“In this sermon, Reverend John Greer reflects on Psalm 51:17, emphasizing the importance of a broken and contrite heart before God. He explains that David wrote this psalm in deep repentance after being confronted by the prophet Nathan about his sin. David openly confessed the depravity, diversity, and direction of his sin—acknowledging its root in his fallen nature, its various forms (transgression, iniquity, and sin), and how it was ultimately against God. Reverend Greer urges listeners to recognize their own sinful condition, to understand that true confession and penitence are essential for forgiveness. He reminds us that, like the publican in Luke 18, we must humbly seek God's mercy through Jesus Christ, who alone satisfies God’s justice and holiness, offering salvation to those who repent.”

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original word means error. It's a word that denotes failure in terms of not reaching the standard that God has set, erring from the mark, from the divine requirement. Then the word for transgression in verses 1 and 3 signifies rebellion, while the word for iniquity in verses 2 and 5 means perversity, underlining the wickedness of sin.

Therefore, as David penitently confesses his sin, he freely and openly recognizes the wide-ranging and evil thing that it is. He is essentially confessing that he saw sin to be exceeding sinful. He saw that sin is not a trivial matter, that there is nothing right about it or anything that is to be promoted or commended concerning sin.

So he confesses the diversity of his sin. He shows that he is a man who realizes that sin is a failure to reach God's standard. It is the transgressing of his law out of rebellion and defiance for that law.

It is a perverse thing. It is the wickedness of sin that is really in view as David goes before the Lord and he confesses freely in his penitence the very features of sin that we notice right here. Then he also confesses the direction of his sin.

Verse 4, he says this against thee, Thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. Notice here in verse 4 that David is seized with the awful realization that his sin was against the Lord. Now, no doubt he had the sense that his sin was against others as well because it was, but such awareness of his sin being against others would have increased the force of his feeling that his sin was against the Lord.

He had sinned against many. He wronged many. But you see, all of his wrongdoing centered and culminated and climaxed at the foot of God's throne.

He was so overwhelmed with a sense of wrong done to the Lord that all other confession of sin done against others was swallowed up in his heart-rending confession in verse 4, against thee, Thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight. And as we look at the closing words of verse 4, notice what he says there, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. He notices and he confesses that he has no argument to bring against divine justice.

He knew that if hell had opened up to swallow him, he could not have disputed such a verdict. It would have been just and right. It would have been nothing more than he deserved.

And therefore, his confession was real. It was genuine. And I show you today that where there is a broken and a contrite heart, there will be penitence, and that penitence will be manifested by a free, open confession of sin before the Lord.

And I urge you this day to consider your heart and your life in the light of Holy Scripture. See how far you are from God, how depraved you are in your own nature, how diverse your sin actually is, and how it is set against the Lord. It's directed against him.

It is a violation of his ways and his word and what he has revealed by way of his divine standard for men in the Scriptures of truth. This is a point that you must see. There's no hope for any person.

There is no semblance of hope for any individual of ever being in heaven unless there's, first of all, this true penitence over sin. We think of many in Scripture who show that penitence that David displays here, and we see in them as well that it is something that must be sought for and exercised before a holy God. We think of the man in the temple in Jerusalem in the Lord's parable in Luke 18, and we read there that this man, the publican, stood afar off.

He would not lift up his eyes to heaven. He beat upon his breast and he cried, God be merciful to me, the sinner. Why did he feel that way? Why did he behave that way? Because there was true penitence.

There was an overwhelming and a crushing sense of his sin and his guilt before a holy God. And he looked, of course, to the right source for the pardon that he needed, and he sensed that he must have. That is, he looked away to the Lord Jesus Christ because the very words there, God be merciful to me, the sinner, indicate that he was speaking of mercy that's found through God being satisfied in his justice and in his holiness.

And let me tell you today, the only way that a sinner will ever find pardon from God and peace with God is upon the ground of his justice being satisfied and all his holy standards being met. And thank God Christ has provided that satisfaction to both the justice and the holiness of God. Christ's life and Christ's death.

Therein lies our righteousness that we need before God. Come to Christ; seek him with all your heart. May your cry go up today from the depth of your soul that the Lord will indeed have mercy upon you and he will hear you and thank God he will save.