Renew a right spirit

Be gracious to me, O God. according to Thy lovingkindness; according to the greatness of Thy compassion blot 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 Thee, Thee only, I have sinned, and done what is evil in Thy sight, so that Thou art justified when Thou dost speak, and blameless when Thou dost judge.

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. Behold, Thou dost desire truth in the innermost being, and in the hidden part Thou wilt make me know wisdom. Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, let the bones which Thou hast broken rejoice. Hide Thy face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Thy presence, and do not take Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation, and sustain me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Thy ways, and sinners will be converted to Thee.

Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, Thou God of my salvation; then my tongue will joyfully sing of Thy righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, that my mouth may declare Thy praise. For Thou dost not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; Thou art not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise. Psalm 51:1–17.

David had gone through many, many things, and this prayer deals with the problems in our life and of the Lord renewing a right spirit. Although his prayer starts with the confession and repentance of his sin, David is aware of something more than his sin. He’s aware that he needs the joy restored to him. He’s aware that he’s lost something in his spirit and this to him is the tragedy.

God abhorred the sin, but the sin was an effect. The cause was David’s loss in his spirit. Ministers have preached on every little transgression, but I have never been too much concerned about the actual transgression, for there are sins; and there are sins. I’m more concerned about what happens in a person’s spirit than I am about the effects of his resulting actions—his floundering around and his rebellion. Those things have various degrees of iniquity in the sight of man, but in the sight of God the great transgression was made when that person lost a good spirit, an upright spirit.

We see in this Psalm that a right spirit can be lost. Renew a steadfast spirit within me. David had lost it. How did he lose it? Well, it was transgression—because it was confessed there. What did God do when David lost that right spirit? That’s a problem. Verse 8 says, Let the bones which thou hast broken rejoice. This verse talks about the bones which Thou hast broken.

David was a shepherd who knew what such a thing could mean. In those days the land of Palestine was forested with large, beautiful hardwood trees that remained until the Turks cut them all down. Many animals dwelt in those forests, and David knew what it was to take care of the flocks in the face of danger. If you remember, he tells of how he fought the lion and the bear. He had learned to keep a sling handy.

They would swing a long thong with a rock in it in a rotating motion, and after it had gained a great deal of momentum they would let loose of one of the strings and the rock would just sail—They were often more accurate with those slingshots than many of you would be using a gun with a site on it.

David knew exactly how to use his sling. That wasn’t just a little trick of a novice that he pulled on Goliath. He had slain the lion and the bear already; he knew how to use that weapon.

And he knew the danger to those little lambs, who didn’t understand and didn’t learn how to stay with the flock, but began to wander off. When a little lamb tended to be wayward, there was no way the shepherd could be merciful and soft. He took his staff and broke one of its legs. Then he would bind it up and the little lamb could limp around, but it didn’t wander away. The wolves didn’t get it and the lions didn’t devour it.

David found that he had lost that right spirit that kept him close to the flock—close to the Shepherd. And he knew what it was for the Lord to bring down His staff and break his leg that the bones which He had broken might rejoice. The price of losing a right spirit is very expensive. Believe me! You may evade the cost for a little while, but the Lord sees when you wander away and your spirit becomes too far removed from Him. And He will start dealing with you. Don’t think He’s being cruel. He’s saving you from the lions!

How is He going to reach you when that thing in your spirit that presses into God, that reaches into the Lord, that wants to serve Him and loves Him so intently, begins to wane? One day you notice that you are losing your anticipation of the Lord, and next you lose your tender conscience toward God. Then you just don’t seem to care as much anymore. The Spirit of God would convict you, but you don’t grieve. He speaks to you, but you don’t mourn. So He breaks your bones.

How can a right spirit be renewed? Create in me a clean heart, O God. Restore to me the joy of thy salvation, and sustain me with a willing spirit. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. I assume that repentance is the only route by which a man can find his way back, if he has lost a right spirit. I do not think a right spirit can be ministered to an individual.

 I am in favor of becoming increasingly discriminating concerning the choice of those to whom we minister. The ministries cannot literally pick up somebody who is dragging his feet, and carry him into the kingdom! The kingdom of God is preached, and every man (note: “every man”) presseth (from a word that means violence, to force) into it. Luke 16:16.

We have to respond to the preaching of the kingdom with intensity so that the invisible realm of God’s kingdom becomes real to us, we enter into the kingdom right now.

 There must be a certain initiative in your own spirit that requires you to press in. You cannot effectively receive ministry if you are not really pressing in. David says, Sustain me with a willing spirit—that willing spirit to reach into the Lord.

I think God is not so much moved by what we do, as by the spirit behind it, he looks more at the motivation of our actions. Hannah sang, For the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. I Samuel 2:3.

 He weighs the spirit behind what you do. How much of the tedious routine of service is really acceptable to the Lord? Was it done with a whole heart? Was it done with a right spirit? David says, “Lord, You don’t delight in sacrifice.” He says, “God, I don’t think You’re too much concerned about anything I could give You; You’re not even too pleased with burnt offerings.” The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.

That broken spirit, the broken and contrite heart (referring to the soul) is very important. All the world is drawing toward an arrogance, an ego trip. You are fed it constantly, even through the school systems. But the Scriptures say that knowledge puffeth up (I Corinthians 8:1). The world’s philosophy emphasizes self-confidence—you have to have that self-confidence.

 But the Lord says, Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Matthew 5:4. There’s a way of walking humbly before God; and there’s a way of walking with a kind of spiritual pride and an arrogance which is just a natural product of everything on the human level. God delights in someone who turns away from all of that and says, “Lord, my spirit is broken before You.” A broken and a contrite heart God will never despise.

Who can understand the spiritual instruction to the double minded, “Afflict yourselves, mourn and weep” (James 4:9). Who wants to walk that kind of pathway, to totally humble thyself to the point of morning having no confidence in the flesh. Most people would say, “Oh, let’s be happy.” Well, there is a joy. And David mentions it twice in this Psalm: Let the bones which Thou hast broken rejoice. And again he says, Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation. Those two coexist—a broken spirit and the joy of the Lord.

The word broken means a shattering, breaking to pieces, it refers to the pain of displeasing God and repentance; it also has a secondary meaning of birth. It is the beginning of a walk with God where you experience the presence of God in Godly sorrow and the comfort of the Holy Spirit of being placed in Christ.

You never know such a deep joy as when you walk before the Lord with a broken spirit. Nothing equals the depth of that joy of the Lord. Somehow it’s His very delight in you that you react to—a joy that comes to you. David knew when it was lost, because the loss of that joy is a serious symptom of a wrong spirit. Do you have that joy now? The loss of that joy is the symptom. When you lack joy, something is wrong in your spirit.

PSALM 51: 6 Behold, Thou dost desire truth in the innermost being, and in the hidden part Thou wilt make me know wisdom. This is dealing with the inner dishonesty and the self-deception there. If people would only realized when they were drifting away—when their spirit was wrong!

 A wrong spirit seems to act within those with a false confidence; they think everything is all right. They say like Samson, “I will go as other times and shake myself free.” But on that day he slept with his head in Delilah’s lap. He was more concerned about his sexual gratifications with a heathen woman then with the will of God or his dedication to the Lord. So Delilah was able to have the hair carefully shaved from Samson’s head. Then, giving a signal to the Philistines who were ready to come in, she shouted, “Samson! Samson! Wake up! The Philistines are here.” Samson rose and shook himself, and said, “I’ll go out as before, and smite the Philistines.” I like the phraseology of the King James text which says, And he wist not that the Lord (the Spirit of the Lord) was departed from him. Judges 16:20.

He could feel his confidence; he could flex his muscles; but when he lost that right spirit, he wasn’t even aware of what he had lost, of how much he had lost.

There’s a kind of self-deception about a wrong spirit. We need a gauge on us that would turn loose some kind of electric shocking system, or would ring bells, or flash red lights, so when you sat in church with a wrong spirit it would blink! blink! blink! blink! and everyone would know that you had a wrong spirit—especially you! But there seems to be no way of telling that you have a wrong spirit. You sit there, and like Samson, you wist not how the Spirit of the Lord has departed from you.

If a person was just aware of what was happening to them. But it creeps up on their spirit and it doesn’t necessarily hit their conscious mind. That level isn’t alerted. There are no bells to ring, no flashing lights. Imperceptibly to themselves they grow cold. David says, “O God, You desire truth in the innermost being; in the hidden part You make me to know wisdom.”

O Lord deal with this thing that is below the surface of our conscious mind and thinking, of our awareness, because we can be so unaware of what is taking place. And it’s down in here that there can be no self-deception, no hypocrisy, no glossing over the need. If anything is wrong there, may the Lord teach us wisdom in the hidden man, and show us what we need.

Do not cast me away from Thy presence, and do not take Thy Holy Spirit from me. The loss of the Holy Spirit’s dealing in your life can be the greatest tragedy that ever happened to you. To come to the place where you’ve lost the awareness of His presence is one of the greatest losses that you can experience, because that’s what this is all about. We are called to walk with God. And if it isn’t a walk with God, it’s nothing at all. And to walk with God, you must have an awareness of His presence, a right spirit.

Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Psalm 139:23, 24.

You don’t want to carry within you, unknown, like a time-bomb, some secret seed of future defeat. You don’t want to countenance anything that under an hour of pressure or testing is going to result in the disintegration of your whole life. If you’re going to walk with the Lord, ask Him to deal with it right now. Especially start praying about those sins that you haven’t had any conscience about. You knew they were wrong, but they didn’t bother you—nothing stabbed you in the heart when you committed them. It’s that deadness of feeling, that lack of sensitivity to the voice of the Spirit which becomes such a symptom of a wrong spirit.

Search us, O Lord. Bring release to us. Let Thy Spirit search down deep into the hearts of each of us. Amen.