Iniquity Has Never Swaggered Like It Swaggers Now

Let’s go back a few days and remember why this study on Psalm 51 began:

    “So where should a stray saint begin? Think for a moment of the most famous character in the Bible who sinned horribly and openly until God through a word from the Prophet Nathan brought him to repentance. That’s right…King David. What did David have to say about repentance? Well, he wrote a whole psalm about it and that is what I want to leave you with it this morning. I want you to read it in its totality without an eye on the topic of repentance or any ‘theological tidbit’ in mind. Read God’s holy word and let it be planted in the fallow fields of your hollow heart. I’ve removed the verse numbers from this psalm because I don’t want you distracted by the verses; I want you disturbed by its entirety.”

Have you been the least bit disturbed by what we’ve looked at in Psalm 51? Have you paid it any attention, or is this just another part of your microwave morning because you desire sleep more that sanctification? If you’re squirming in your seat already you may not want to continue reading. The Lord has tussled me up this morning and He has shown me that if I am to make a difference for Him in my sphere of influence then it is high time to stop playing church.

Let me ask you a question…

Do you want revival to come to America?

Do you really?

Do you even have a clue what that means?

It doesn’t mean the Republican Party has a super majority in the Senate, the House is once again ran by the GOP, and “we” take back the White House in 2012. That will not bring revival to America. We tried that once…remember? Do the years 2001 through 2006 ring a bell? And what did the church do all the while?

What did you do all the while?

Did you grow closer to the Lord, or did you stray from Him. Was it in this time you lost your first love for Him? It was for me. I’ve already written of how I sacrificed personal piety for political pragmatism.

Has this study on Psalm 51 caused you to spend more time in the Bible; more time in prayer; more time meditating on God’s Word?

Well Bro Dave I am so busy and it is just so hard…3…2…1…BEEP…microwave’s done!

I will be sure to not miss my work at church and I’ll cook a meal for the sick neighbor done the street…oh and this Saturday morning I’ll be sure to make up my Bible readings that I missed this week. Sshhh! Listen…

    “For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart—these, O God, You will not despise.” (Psalm51:16-17)

“These, O God, You will not despise.”

Think about what David is implying here…what will God not despise?

Think about it.

What did you come up with?

Okay, here is mine. That if I try to make up for a lack of holiness with hurriedness and happenings…these God despises.

NO WAY!!!

Way.

Read what Leonard Ravenhill wrote a few years back:

    “A city wide crusade can cost two million dollars. Revival doesn’t cost a red cent, except broken hearts. You can stage your revival; you can stage a city wide crusade; you can not stage Revival. Revival is a mysterious divine intervention.”

“Revival doesn’t cost a red cent, except broken hearts.” Is your heart broken? More Ravenhill:

    “You know, you talk about revival in this country and everybody has got tunnel vision. They think revival must come like Finney had it. We are not living in Finney’s days. It would be nice to have him around, for sure, but we are not living in Finney’s day. It is a new day. Iniquity has never swaggered like it swaggers now. You know what has happened in the last twenty three years in England? In the last twenty three years in England the Muslims have built 300 mosques and at the same time they were building their 300 mosques the Church of England has closed 660 churches. Does it drive us to despair? There are more people lost in this world at the moment than in any period in history. And yet we go on as though we were on the edge of the millennium instead of on the edge of judgment.”

Is your heart broken? Do you know what happens when that happens to you? Revival comes…to you…God among you. God comes to you and revives your weary soul. Can anything be more needed in your life than that? Do you not long for what the Prophet Isaiah wrote:

    “For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.’” (Isaiah 57:15)

Beloved do you desire the Lord Jesus Christ above all else? Go back and read Psalm 51 and ask yourself if it disturbs you in the least bit. And then ask yourself why or why not?

I feel as though I’ve made no sense this morning because of my moaning.

All I know for sure is that if I am swaggering in my iniquity may God KNOCK me to my knees by any means necessary.

Yeah, that’s a scary thing to say, but only if you believe God doesn’t love you like the Bible says He does. I don’t mean head believe; I mean heart believe.

Tomorrow we will finish Psalm 51 and see how true worship comes to the Lord.

May you be disturbed at some point today and may that disturbance come from a broken and contrite spirit.

In Christ
Dave
Ps. 37:4

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    Copyright © 2010 David Jeffers

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