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I. DAVID KNEW THAT HE HAD SINNED. He says, "My sin is ever before me." It is seen not with the eyes in the head, but with those of the heart. No one could look at David and see his sin, but he could see it. And it had made his heart very bad and black, and whenever he looked down into it, it made him afraid. You have read of haunted houses; he was a haunted man. The murdered Uriah haunted him. He saw his face all ghastly, and his glazed eyes seemed to stare at him. And each time that he thought of his sin, his face turned red with shame, and a new pang of grief wrung his heart. His sin was like one of those portraits which, in whatever part of the room you may be, it seems to be always looking at you. No matter where he was, how he was employed, David's sin was ever before him. If he took up his harp to sing a sad psalm, he saw stains of blood all over his fingers, and the harp only groaned, and he laid it down again. And you remember how Adam, after he had sinned, was afraid to meet the Lord, end hid himself. So David could not find any peace. The song of the birds, the leaves of the trees — all seemed to say to him, "Thy sin, thy sin." Oh, what a hard and had thing it is to sin!

II. BUT DAVID FOUND THE FORGIVING LOVE OF GOD AS GREAT AS ALL HIS SIN. For all the time he prayed to the Lord for pardon. He said that his tears were his meat day and night. He was constantly praying, "Lord, wash me; cleanse me from my sin." God keeps a book of guilt, and David asked Him to blot out all his sin, just as you would like a pen run through a debt that you owed; And the Lord did pardon him, as He only could. Pilate washed his hands, but he could not wash his heart. Jesus can. And He will for us, if we come and ask Him.

(T. Armitage, D. D.)

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KJV: Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.

WEB: Let me hear joy and gladness, That the bones which you have broken may rejoice.