Everyone I know, whether they are a believer or not, has some knowledge of Psalm 51. Verse 10, Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me, was made into a popular contemporary Christian song by Keith Green around 1984. There are two questions (at least in my mind): why is the writer of this Pslam asking for a clean heart?
Beyond the obvious, we are all sinners saved by Grace and desperately need that clean heart, which is what prompted this occasion. Secondly, today’s focus is on what our text means: The sacrifices of God are …
Our first answer comes from the Bible. This Psalm was written after Nathan the prophet had come to inform David (2 Samuel 12:1-12) of God’s judgment against him because of his adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah, her husband.1 David’s sins were grievous, and he definitely needed a clean heart. So he turned, repented, to the creator God, the only capable of forgiveness and renewing a right Spirit in him.
The second answer is also very easy; CONTEXT, as usual, solves a multitude of misunderstandings. If we just take the beginning phrase of v.17, “The sacrifices of God are,” we could build a misguided case that God makes sacrifices. But read in context with verses 15 & 16 we read:
O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare Your praise. 16 For You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; You take no pleasure in burnt offerings. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.… Berean Standard Bible
Verse 17 simply says that far more than any burnt offering, any mobo jumbo word salad, or any other insincere sacrifice we could ever come up with, God desires, nay requires, a broken spirit and a broken and contrite heart.
STUDY
True Confession – PSALM 51 – John MacArthur
Ver. 17. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, &c.] That is humbled under a sense of sin; has true repentance for it; is smitten, wounded, and broken with it, by the word of God in the hand of the Spirit, which is a hammer to break the rock in pieces; and that not merely in a legal, but in an evangelical way; grieving for sin as committed against a God of love; broken and melted down under a sense of it, in a view of pardoning grace; and mourning for it, whilst beholding a pierced and wounded Saviour: the sacrifices of such a broken heart and contrite spirit are the sacrifices God desires, approves, accepts of, and delights in. A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise; but regard, and receive with pleasure; see Psal. 102:17. The Lord binds up and heals such broken hearts and spirits, Psal. 147:3; Isa. 61:1. he is nigh to such persons, looks upon them, has respect unto them, and comes and dwells among them, Psal. 34:18; Isa. 66:1, 2 and 57:15.
John Gill, An Exposition of the Old Testament, vol. 3, The Baptist Commentary Series (London: Mathews and Leigh, 1810), 743.
- Heading from The Living Bible ↩︎
SERMON
THE INNER LIFE by Octavius Winslow
The Broken and Contrite Heart
“The Penitence and Prayer of the Inner Life”
“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” -Psalm 51:17.
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