Psalm 19:12 Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.
13 Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.
14 Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.
God directed David to write this Psalm as a declaration of the clear evidence of God. Creation points to a Creator. This Creator is not some abstract being. This Creator can be known as God. This Psalm begins by declaring that “the heavens declare the glory of God.” We can know there is a God when we look honestly into the heavens. We can see just how mighty and omniscient this God is. We can also know that the Word of this God is right and pure and just. We can have complete confidence in the true God.
In contrast we cannot trust ourselves.
Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
10 I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.
Adam knew he had sinned, but he did not understand the gravity of his sin. David sinned with Bathsheba and he knew it. He tried to cover that sin by bringing Uriah, her husband, back from battle. When Uriah did not do as David expected, he had him murdered. He knew he had sinned. He did not understand the gravity of his sin. Nathan was sent by God to help David to see the gravity of his sin. It did not just affect him. It affected Bathsheba, their baby, and the entire nation of Israel.
The Hebrew word translated as “errors” speaks of “moral mistakes, wanderings.”
God directed David to write that we as people do not grasp the seriousness of sin. We need to understand the seriousness of it in order to turn to God in repentance and seek His forgiveness. There are many people today who sin and make light of their sin. They think that God is a softy and will not hold them accountable. New Evangelicalism is all about this distortion. Thousands have died and gone to hell because they chose to believe the lies of New Evangelicalism and other false religious ideas.
David was directed by God to write and ask God to cleanse him from secret faults. There are sins we commit that no one else knows about. Our thought life is very active. Jesus declared that thinking on a woman with lust is already sin. Hating a person is the same as murdering him. There are many things we can be guilty of that no one else knows of. However, God knows it all.
The same God that made the heavens in such a wonderful way and that shows us the expansiveness of them is the same God who gave us His law and Who shows us things about ourselves that we do not want to know. No matter how hard David tried to cover his sin, he could not keep it from God. God also showed him that others would figure out his sin. The child that Bathsheba bore and gave birth to needed to die to keep people from being constantly reminded of David’s sin. David paid dearly for his sin. His own sons would do publicly what David had tried to keep secret.
Here in our Psalm, God directed David to pray for God’s forgiveness of his secret faults. In verse 13 David spoke of “presumptuous” sins. The Hebrew word translated as “presumptuous” means “proud, arrogant.” It is the presumption that sin is not sin.
David was certainly guilty of that with Bathsheba. He knew it was sin to lust after her. He knew it was wrong to call for her. He knew it was wrong to commit immorality with her, etc. His pride interfered with his ability to stop sinning. His pride brought him low. He could not justify his sin. However, God pointed out that we as people are quite capable of ignoring His Work in our hearts. We can push aside His perfect law. We demonstrate just how wicked we are.
David did not want these proud actions to rule him. He did not want to be ruled by such wicked masters. David also knew that he could never be an upright man if he was a proud man. Those who are saved need to be humble. We cannot be upright if we are trying to hide sin. We need to be willing to hear and follow God’s way. This will require God’s salvation. A person must humble themselves to be saved. We cannot just slip into salvation and all of a sudden we are saved. There is a moment in time when a lost sinner becomes a saint. That moment is when that lost sinner turns to God in repentance, humbling himself before Almighty God and accepts His assessment of the soul. That lost sinner must trust in the Lord Jesus Christ alone as Saviour. The saved person is a saint from the moment of salvation. As a saved person he or she needs to learn how to walk in an upright manner. It is good to be innocent before the Creator God. We can be innocent when we take His Word as our authority. When we submit to God’s Word we will avoid sin. We need to be in God’s Word constantly and we need to follow God with humility. We do not do that all the time and that is the problem. That is why we need to ask God to keep us back from presumptuous sins. We need God to cleanse us from secret faults. We need Him to show us the wickedness that is in our hearts. Don’t be fooled by the subtle tactics of the devil. He has many people doing his bidding. Read God’s Word and see the truth. Attend a good church that can help you to see the truth.
In verse 14 we are reminded of the need to pray that our words and the meditation of our hearts would be acceptable to the LORD. That is an important prayer. It can only be prayed in sincerity by those who are saved and walking humbly with the Lord. God knows how to chasten His own child. He knows how to bring about the peaceable fruit of righteousness. Lost people will not bow to that. They want to justify themselves.
The saved person acknowledges the true God as his Strength and his Redeemer. David understood that. He was a shepherd in his younger years. He knew some of what was involved in that. He learned that he was much harder to guide than those four-legged creatures. He needed God as his Strength and he needed God as his Redeemer. Self-will is a deadly thing.
This prayer should be our prayer as well. It would be pointless to pray this prayer if we want to continue in sin. A person needs to be saved first of all and then he or she can make this the prayer of their heart. God loves to hear the honest prayers of His people. He also loves to hear a lost sinner turn to Him in repentance and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation.
Pastor Bartel
