---

I. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSITY FOR GOD'S RENEWAL OF US IF WE WOULD PERSEVERE.

1. Nothing that God has made is self-existent. Not the angels even. The very mountains crumble, and the great rivers have to be perpetually refilled from the mountain snows.

2. This is especially true of all wherein life is. Job's war-horse, whose neck is clothed with thunder, must humble himself to his stall and to his provender. Samson himself must have a cleft opened in the rock that he may drink, for though he has slain the Philistines, yet will he perish if his thirst be not quenched.

3. Your own inner consciousness says the same. What downward tendencies there are in us all. We could travel down-hill to hell easily, but upwards to heaven how hardly!

4. And if we will not see this we may be made to, and that terribly, by some surprising sin. See the occasion of this psalm.

5. Unconscious backsliding from God will certainly be upon us unless we experience the renewals of God's Spirit. The Church has rest now-a-days, and is where Pilgrim was when he went through the enchanted ground, and the air was heavy, and he had much ado to keep himself from sleeping. Perhaps it is a truthless legend that the holidays of Capua ruined the veterans of Hannibal, but if it be a legend in his case, it is a fact in ours. Therefore we do need to pray, "Renew a right spirit within me." And because of —

II. OUR OWN POWERLESSNESS TO DO THIS. "Without me," said our Lord, "we can do nothing"; but we do not fully know all that means. When a ship is in sailing order and in good condition, yet she cannot speed on her voyage of herself: even though the sails be spread, there is no hope of her making her port unless the wind shall blow. For to renew a soul is as when Christ called forth Lazarus from the grave: it is to go directly opposite to nature. Who can make water run up-hill, or suspend the cataract in mid-air? Every grace is wanted that was needed in our first conversion. Then pray this prayer, but pray it not falsely, as you will if you use not the means through which God works. He is a hypocrite who asks the Lord to visit him and then nails up his door.

III. THE BLESSED RESULTS OF SUCH RENEWAL — this another argument for our praying this prayer. What joy, what activity, how useful you will be: how light will be the load of this world's trials.

IV. REMEMBER GOSPEL OBLIGATIONS TO RENEW OUR COVENANT WITH GOD.

1. It was well for you at the first to make this covenant.

2. Jesus often renews it with us, and —

3. All He has done for us binds us to it. You that have gone astray, pray this prayer. If the Church for thy backslidings has had to cast thee out, if there be still a desire in thy soul to return, Christ waits for thee. And whoever we be, young or old, men or women struggling amid the world's cares, or young men and maidens, or young children, come now and renew your vows unto God.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

---

---

KJV: Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

WEB: Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me.