Now, for a few moments, let's look at the 51st Psalm. And we're going to consider, for the closing portion of these three messages, verses 12 through 19. And before we do, I want to review, just for a moment, we have seen that the nature of true forgiveness, to really experience the forgiveness of God, entails three things. First of all, a right view of sin. We must acknowledge, one, that sin deserves judgment. Two, that it appeals for mercy. Three, that it needs, that it demands cleansing. Four, that it accepts full responsibility. And five, that it proceeds from our nature. Then we saw last Sunday night, that we must also have a right view, not only of sin, but a right view of God. That it has a right view of God's holiness, a right view of God's power, a right view of God's prerogative to chastise, and a right view of forgiveness. Now, tonight, I want us to look for a moment at the fact that the nature of true forgiveness demands a right view of ourselves. We have to understand some things about our self. Now, what is that thing that we must understand? Well, first of all, we must simply understand that for the sake of some things, we must be holy. That's everything David has said. I simply must be right with God. But I must come to a commitment in my life. But I realize I am not any younger. I'm not getting younger. I need to face the serious issues of life. And that there's a time to put behind one childish things, to grow up and become a mature man and woman, and by a simple act of the will, to decide to put my life in the arena of commitment. Where Jesus Christ and Satan can do hand -to -hand conflict in the issues that buy for supremacy and control in my life, that I belong to God. That I am His. That I will live right with God. And to understand that holiness, the holiness of God, demands that I live a holy life. A life of integrity. Now, why? David is dealing with his sin. And he is saying, it is ever before me. It has made me dirty. I long to be clean. It has made me to stray. I long to be close. It has broken my legs. I long to be healed. It has taken my joy. I long again to be able to be restored and fulfilled and experience the praise and gladness of God. I simply must make a simple commitment of integrity to being right with God. I will live a holy life. Now, he proceeds from that point to tell us three reasons for the sake of three kinds of persons, groups of persons or individuals, why a man must live a holy life. First of all, it is for the sake of sinners. I have a responsibility to my friends that are not Christians. Now, look with me over, if you will, please, in Psalms 51, verse number 12, and let's look first through verse 15. Psalm 51, 12 through 15. David says, Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways and sinners shall be converted unto thee. Why? Because thou hast restored unto me the joy of thy salvation. Deliver me from blood guiltlessness, O God, thou God of my salvation. And then my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. O Lord, open thou my lips and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. David is saying, I have a responsibility to be a witness, a testimony to unsaved people. And one simply cannot speak and witness of the glory of the righteousness of a Christian life out of the context of an unrighteous heart. Sin closes your mouth. Sin keeps you from witnessing. You're not going to be a good salesman for a righteous life if you're not living one. You're not going to be a good testimony to others of the glory of serving Jesus if you're not serving Him. David is confessing to God that I cannot praise you. I cannot witness for you. I cannot talk to men about their service to you if I myself have no service. Sin locks your jaws. One of the first things that a man does when he becomes a Christian, when he gets saved, when he gets happy, when he gets right with God, is want to tell somebody else. The American Baptists, many of them, have a policy of not taking people into the church immediately. And they have a little testing time. They go through a school, and if they prove themselves, then they are voted into church membership. In a certain city in the north, a young woman had become a Christian. She was saved on the spot at the altar in a large American or Northern Baptist church. And they began to explain to her that she had to wait a while because she had to go through a little testing time before she could be approved and confirmed for church membership. And as they were talking to her, she was weeping and crying and heartbroken. And the pastor very tenderly went to her and said, I know it's difficult to ask you to wait, and I would personally like to just throw you into the church right now, but it's a policy that we have. And the girl, seeing that the church was sensitive toward her sensitivity, stood to apologize and said, Pastor, may I say a word? She said, may I just say, congregation, that I understand the rule, and I don't want it to be changed for me, but that's not why I'm weeping. She said, I'm weeping over my brother who's a soldier in Germany, and he's unsaved, and I want him to know the joy that I know. Immediately, one of the deacons stood to his feet and said, Pastor, this woman has given obvious testimony of the reality of her commitment to Christ. She's saved if anybody's saved, and I make a motion, we waive the church policy and vote her in on the spot. That was a wise deacon. This young woman gave obvious testimony because she cared for somebody else that she had the genuine article. You see, David is saying, I can't witness. My jaws are locked. I cannot praise him because my own heart is dissatisfied with my relationship to God, and how can I sell somebody else, sell somebody else on something I'm not experiencing myself? You know, our church has many wonderful testimonies, or many wonderful ministries. As I look at what we do, I realize that so many of them are a collective witness to the Lord Jesus Christ. There is something that happens in the electricity of the services when the body is a symbol that is much like the presence of Jesus that is attractive to people. There's something that goes out on the radio, on the television, that people can sense. And all the time, people tell me they just wouldn't miss the broadcast. And the testimony of the church as it stands for the issues and is a witness to the world is a marvelous thing. But I want you to know that one collective witness of one church will never go very far in witnessing to the whole city and to the whole world. In a far eastern city not too long ago, the story is told that a great snowstorm had come. And it was very cold and it was icy and a man went down to get his little boat. He'd left some fishing tackle in it and he started to get these things out because it was cold and blowing and he didn't know how long it would be and maybe the things would be ruined. And he went down to make secure the little boat that he loved to fish in that he kept in the little stream and to get his things out. And he had to go out in the boat and accidentally, it was carelessly tied and he found himself five and ten and fifteen and twenty feet away from the shore. Well, he wasn't worried because there was a paddle in the boat and he reached around and to his dismay and horror found that the oar that he expected to save him was gone. And he began to drift and was thirty feet and fifty feet and far, far away and more than a mile down the stream against which he had no power as he tried with his hands to row himself back to safety amid the fast swirling current of the river. There was a waterfall, a very giant waterfall, one over which a man falling would have no chance of life. He didn't know what to do. Not very far away he had a friend that was a farmer who lived in another house on a little bit of an incline and the back view from the window overlooked the river. And he could not believe his eyes when the neighboring farmer looked out the window and saw the young man, his friend, drifting along to obvious peril. Quick as a wink, he raced to town in his car, went to the local hardware store where he knew around the Warren Fireside and the Fellowship, in that kind of weather, numbers of friends from the city would be there. And he told them quickly the peril that his friend was in. Quick as a wink, they began to pull out a great roll of rope and cut it off in 20 -foot strands and give one man a rope and another a rope and another and another. They got in their cars and as fast as they could go, went down to the bridge beneath which, just before it went over the waterfalls, the little boat in which their friend was sailing was bound to pass. All up and down the bridge they gathered, each of them, holding tied to their wrists, giving their very lives if necessary for the salvation of that friend, each of them dropped over the edge of that bridge, their 20 -foot strand of rope, until it dangled just at water's top. It seemed like an eternity, but less than five minutes, and here came their friend. The snow and the wind almost froze in his face, and his heart was freezing, and his hands were freezing, but he took hope and heart as he looked in front of him and saw a veritable sea of ropes and knew to his joy that there was no way he could get through that sea of ropes without being able to grasp just one of them. The wind blew him first this way and then that way, and each man racing back and forth to make sure that he was close to as many ropes as possible, with frozen hands but gladdened heart. As he raced under the bridge, he grasped and was held fast in the clutch of one of those ropes and pulled to safety. Now, what if there would have been just one man? What if there would have been just one rope? How far can one man go? How much good could one ladder of salvation do? How much witness in a city of hundreds of thousands of people can one collective witness of one church do? Every day, every Tuesday in staff meeting between one and two, our staff is in my office on our knees, and we are praying specifically for our people, some of whose names we know, some which we don't know. God bless them. God be with the church wherever she is today. Lord, may they be faithful. I am saying to you that unless all the hundreds and thousands of us are faithfully putting up the ropes of salvation all over this town in our witness for Jesus Christ, there's no way we're going to plug all the holes and offer a rope to all the drowning sinners in the city of Houston, Texas. One rope's not enough. One collective witness of one church will never do. But as we do it together, we can get the job done. Oh, how I pray that a brand new commitment to personal witnessing, a personal extending of the rope of salvation by all of us at all times in all places shall breathe across the fellowship of this church. But it'll never happen until it comes from the heart and framework of a holy life. You'll find that sin locks your jaws, and you'll never be witnessing to a man about the joy of serving Jesus Christ and knowing Him if you're not serving Him yourself. David said, Lord, I've got to be holy. I've got to make up my mind to live a holy life for the sake of sinners. Lord, if you'll forgive me, I promise you that the natural result of my forgiveness and joy is that men are going to be converted. God, give me one more chance to be faithful and to witness for you, and you'll see I'll do it for you. Well, David says there's another reason why we must live a holy life, why we must have the right view of sin as it relates to ourselves. And I would suggest to you that that is for the sake of God, for the Lord's sake. Psalm 51, verse 15. O Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise, for thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offerings. Lord, I, David is saying, want to give you what you want. He said, Lord, if you just want some sacrifices, if you just want some bullocks upon the altar, if you only want some bloodsled, Lord, I can do that with no personal commitment. I'll just go kill them, I'll just go offer them, I'll just go through the motions, I can do that. But Lord, I know that's not what you want. And I want to give you what you want. I want to please you, Lord. And what you want is a broken spirit over my sin, a contrived heart that looks up and loves and worships and honors you. Lord, for your sake, I'm going to make you happy. Let me ask you a question. We talk an awful lot about the goodness of God and what God's done for us. What have you done for God lately? Talk about how he has blessed me. Have you of late blessed him? I like David's song. Let me tell you something. David was a man after God's own heart. He made a bad mistake, but he only made it once. He wrote the songs. He learned how to praise. He became God's most effective servant. I believe of the old Testament after whom all of the Jews look for a King to come after the order of King David. In fact, our Lord calls himself proudly the son of David, son of David. He sure did identify himself with a pretty rotten old boy, but one who was drastically changed, who made an intentional commitment to say, I'm going to live a life of godly, holy integrity for the sake of you, Lord, because that's what you want. And listen to one of the Psalms that he wrote. God bless me. No, he's praying. God bless me here. Let me tell you what he wrote later. Bless the Lord. Oh, my soul and all that is within me. Bless the Lord. Oh, my soul and forget not all his benefits. David was saying, I want to be a blessing to you, Lord. I wonder sometimes if you ever picture as I do, Jesus weeping over the sin of the world and the failure of his people and seeing a little insignificant act that one of his children does for him that makes him to smile through his tears and say, attaboy, God bless you. Thank you for that. You make me feel good in my heart. I want us to be prepared. I want to ask you to consider giving next Saturday as a day of fasting and prayer. As your heart and your body and your mind and your soul comes to church with a little bit of pain, a little bit of agony as we look toward understanding the suffering of what Jesus did in the crucifixion for us. I want us to be able to say, Lord, I identify with you. I love you. I am willing to pay the price, too. I'm willing to do what it takes to please you, Lord. Lord, you always please me and forgive me and make me happy and bless me. I want to live so well. I want to so identify with you. I want to so be involved with you, Lord, that my life will make you happy. I want to challenge you in this season of the year as we give consideration to the agony and sorrow of Jesus to ask God, what can I do for you between now and next Sunday night? That'll make you happy. Jesus, that'll make you feel good. You know what? He'll tell you what it is. He'll give you something to do and then you do it and please him. David is saying, Lord, for the sake of sinners, I'm going to live a holy life. For the sake of you, I'm going to live a holy life. And then a right view of forgiveness. To have the forgiveness of God demands a right view of ourselves as it relates to other people, he says, for the sake of other believers, for the family of God, for my fellow believers. Over in the 51st Psalm now, the last couple of verses, do good in thy good pleasure, Lord, unto sinners? No. Unto me? No. Unto you, Father? No. Now, Lord, unto Zion, he says, for the sake of the whole family, for all the brotherhood, do you know that when your life is not a holy life, when your life has sin in it, man, you're hurting me. You're not ministering your spiritual gift to me. How many times, how many of us are here tonight? A thousand, twelve hundred of us maybe? And maybe in 50 hearts, a hundred, a thousand, how many hearts is the Lord flowing through and working through us. And he's trying to heal hearts. He wants to minister. He wants to love. Some need encouragement. Some need conviction. A thousand things he's trying to do here tonight, but He's not doing all of them. He's only doing a small part of them because some of our hearts aren't surrendered to Him, and He is not flowing through all of us. The Spirit is stagnated and barricaded and blocked up in some hearts. Some there's a little trickle. Some there's nothing coming out. Some there's out of their innermost being flowing living rivers of water and great power. But in far too few of us, is that kind of thing being experienced? Every time the church family meets, there's something God's trying to do for people. And unless all of us are letting Him be Lord in our lives, unless there is holiness and integrity and the joy and the fullness of salvation and the Spirit in our lives, then the family is sick and needs are unmet and gifts are unministered and needs not satisfied. Why? Because we're not letting God work through us so that He can do what He wants to for all of us. You know, I realize I have responsibility to sinners. Every time I preach, I know that's true. Where was I a few days ago? I know, I told you a couple of weeks ago, I attended a service at Assembly of God's Church in Pasadena on an evening because they're having a missionary conference. And I was interested to have a fantastic world missions program, the Assemblies of God. And a woman, a young woman, about 25, came up and said, every Sunday night, my unsaved husband and I sit in front of our TV sets from eight to nine and watch you preach. She said a hundred times he's been right on the edge, right on the edge. Pray for Him. Now that's one. How many more are there like that? Many times I've gotten up to preach in the last month and I've remembered that girl's face and what she said to me. I have a responsibility to sinners. I have a responsibility to Jesus. Is He pleased with me? Is He happy? Oh, man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, I hope that you and I will do something this week. We'll live this week so that we'll make Jesus a little bit happier. There's more to it. There's for the sake of the church. If I come in here into this pulpit and I do not give you my best. If you teach, if you sing, if you attend, if you contribute anything, and it is not your complete best for the sake of Zion, for the sake of all, then we fail Him. That's what David says, for your sake, for the sake of the believers, and for the sake of sinners. I simply must live a holy life. Now, cleansing is a very simple thing. As we have seen again and again, there is sorrow. There is agreement with God. It is to say the same thing God says. There is turning. There is acknowledgement, and there is claiming forgiveness. You don't need to walk out of this building tonight with one sin that has any control or any conviction or any power over you at all. You can be free. You can be strong. You can be healthy. You can be a man. You can be a woman in Jesus Christ. You can live a victorious Christian life. There is power in the blood of Christ to separate you from the guilt and power of your sins. He does talk about it as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. But listen, the same God who stopped the mouth of the lions in Daniel's den is able to render the devil a gumming, toothless pussycat rather than a roaring lion. If you'll claim the power of the blood and let Jesus do conflict in your life, would you be free from your burden of sin? There is wonder -working power in the blood of the lamb. I said a few weeks ago as I was bringing my message on the sermon on tongues in the series on the gifts in the body life series that one of the gods in whose name tongues and pagan worship in the old days and Greek days had been worshipped was the god of the waters, the god of the troubled waters, Poseidon. Many of us did a mental plug -in right there and remember the movie The Poseidon Adventure. It's one of the most exciting, I understand. It's come down the pike in a long time. They say that I didn't see the show, but they say there's a scene in The Poseidon Adventure in which a giant tidal wave takes this great luxury liner on the ocean and completely capsizes it and turns it upside down. And in the ballroom where they're dancing and singing and being entertained and eating and drinking, there's great confusion. And the only way out is up because down has become up, and up has become down, and there are channels and passageways and perhaps some kind of a, hopefully a doorway at the bottom of the ship, which is now at the top of the ship, which if they can crawl through a maze of doors and passages and over pipes and through little areas, they can finally get to and get out. But before they can get started, they've got to get out that ballroom. And it's Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve, and there's still a Christmas tree there. And somebody has the presence of mind to take that giant metal Christmas tree and drag several of them to one corner, for it's the only thing that's tall enough to point to that hole from which they can start climbing and hopefully get out. I understand a few finally do. Some folks won't try. Some are afraid it won't work. Some think there's another way out. Some don't like the idea. Some are embarrassed. Some this, some that. But finally, a few decide to go up that tree. And those few with the courage and faith to follow, finally, many of them find their way to safety. Well, there's a big difference in that. And the tree that God planted, not a Christmas tree, but a tree that grew on a hill called Calvary. Because every man who comes to that tree, a tree which is pointed heavenward, which points up, which is the only way of escape, which starts men toward a heavenly road from which Jesus, to which Jesus comes and takes their hands and says, I'll go all the way with you, I'll go all the way with you, that man that comes by that tree, that man that comes through that tree, the way of that old rugged cross, which they say might have possibly been made out of dogwood. That that tree, that that tree, that that tree, when a man comes by that, every man makes it. Because every sin is forgiven at the cross. Every guilt is put away. Everything is dealt with. No man ever came to Jesus Christ in repentance and sincerity to that tree that did not find the blood sufficient to separate him from his sins and point him toward heaven and start him on a road of peace and forgiveness. True forgiveness. True forgiveness. You can know it. You can know it as an unbeliever tonight through Jesus Christ. You can know it as a believer who learns how to deal as David did, as Peter did, Judas did not with your sins. There's a tree that still grows. There's a tree that still grows. The way of the cross leads home. There's a fountain, you see, filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. And sinners plunge beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains. The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day. And there may I, though vile as he, wash all my sins away. When this poor, lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave, then hallelujah. In an obler, sweeter song, I'll sing thy power to save. Through Jesus' blood and forgiveness to the grapes of blood that grew and fell from that tree on that cross. You can, this night, settle your peace with God. The door is ajar if you will come to him. Let's bow our heads together and just pray for a moment. Our Father, we cannot but believe that men and women here this night are grappling with the question of their sin, are needing you, are hungry for you, have found themselves caught in a web that has dragged them away and down and want to come back. Help us to know that we just do so, like the prodigal who stood up and said, I will arise and go, and he arose and went. But there's a time to stand up and say, this is it. I'll make my commitment. God be merciful. God cleanse me by your blood. And I'll come to you. Lord, for this church family's sake, for others that need us so much, our best, for the sake of sinners that will never hear a testimony to Jesus from unsatisfied customers, and for the sake of thou, precious Son of God, who didst give so much for our sake, we pray. Amen.