God Desires Psalm 51

Do good in Your good pleasure to Zion;
Build the walls of Jerusalem.
Then You shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness,
With burnt offering and whole burnt offering;
Then they shall offer bulls on Your altar.   (Psalm 51:18-19)

Therefore the Lord said:

“Inasmuch as these people draw near with their mouths
And honor Me with their lips,
But have removed their hearts far from Me,
And their fear toward Me is taught by the commandment of men..."   (Isaiah 29:13)

God revealed an amazingly abrupt message to me while I was reading Psalm 51 a couple mornings ago.  I'm sorry if this comes across awkwardly; it was hard to express what exploded in my heart at the time when I read it.

Psalm 51 is one of the more well-known and frequently-cited psalms.  It was penned by King David, the "man after God's own heart"  (1 Samuel 13:14; Acts 13:22), soon after he had both committed adultery with Bathsheeba and set her husband up to be killed on the front lines of battle (2 Samuel 11:2-5, 14-27).  Devastated by the realization of the sinfulness of these acts and how much they separated him from the holiness of God, David cries out to be forgiven, restored, and renewed.  In fact all of Psalm 51 echoes with these heart-cries (Psalm 51:1-15)...until one reaches verses 18 and 19 (above).  But what is curious is right before these two verses, David reveals something that seems to completely contradict them: 

For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering.   (Psalm 51:16)

But wait.  Verse 16 says that God does NOT want sacrifices and burnt offerings, but then verses 18-19 proclaim that God will be "PLEASED with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole offering..."   So which is it?!  

What God showed me as it applies to what He sees going on these days with "Christians" and "the church"  I think is the answer, and it falls in between these two seemingly contradictory messages:

Verse 17:  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart—

These, O God, You will not despise.

Verse 18:  Do good in Your good pleasure to Zion;

Build the walls of Jerusalem...

(and THEN)...You shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness,
With burnt offering and whole burnt offering;    Verse 19 (parentheses mine)

I believe what God is trying to say is that as we are now, He cannot accept any type of "sacrifice" or "offering" because they are coming from vessels that have either knowingly or unknowingly turned away from Him to go after our own "Bathsheebas" (lusts of the flesh, of they eyes, the pride of life:  1 John 2:15-17) or kill our own "Uriahs" in whatever form that slaughter takes (back-biting, gossip, slander, impatience, wrong thoughts towards others...and the list goes on).  But unlike David, who saw his sin and mourned over how it separated him from God (Psalm 51:3-4), either we are so deceived that we think things are o.k. as they are, or so numb that we may sense that something is not right between God and us, but we have a hard time caring...so in either state, we just continue "honoring God with our lips, with our hearts becoming farther, and farther, and farther from Him" and our "sacrifices and offerings" are like those described in Isaiah 1:11-15, esp. v. 12. 

And this can be seen in the way "Christians" treat one another; how they treat others; the lack of love in what is supposed to be the Body of Christ; and the twisting of the Gospel in churches by those who call themselves pastors, but who take God's Word and use it to stir up their "audiences" for whatever agenda they may have -- and the "Christians" go right along with it!   Neither checking their Bibles for whether what they are hearing is the truth (Acts 17:11) nor giving much thought to the fact that in the long run, satan and the demonic realm are getting a victory by having many fed on what are ultimately lies mixed with truth, truth mixed with lies:  a little leaven leavens the whole lump (Galatians 5:7-9). 

Broken vessels, but no broken and contrite spirit...

(Be astonished, O heavens, at this, And be horribly afraid; Be very desolate,” says the Lord.

“For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters,
And hewn themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water.)      (Jeremiah 2:12-13; see also, Luke 5:37-39)

...BUT, God wants to "do good to Zion"...to "Build the walls of Jerusalem," which I believe means that we come to Him NOW in repentance (as David did, with a broken and contrite spirit), aware of the distance we have created between Him and us; to petition Him for restoration - to be re-connected with Him AND with other brothers and sisters in Christ; and to expect the renewal of our souls and spirits if our requests to Him are sincere.  To confess our love of the things of this world; the tainted (or non-existent) love in our hearts for Him and others; and the laziness of seeking after spiritual things (Colossians 3:1-4), which makes us that much more vulnerable to the "wolves in sheep's clothing" who are NOT speaking the Truth to us...and to satan and the demonic realm's inevitable attacks (1 Peter 5:8).  

And through our confession and surrendering, He will graciously and mercifully build us (the Spirit of Christ within us) up as the "old man" withers and dies (Galatians 2:20):

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.   (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.  But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.   (2 Corinthians 3:17-18)

But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth.  Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.  (Colossians 3:1-17, vv. 3-11 here). 

AND THEN...whatever "sacrifices" and "offerings" come from us will be being presented to Him from hearts that are fully and solely surrendered to Him...being transformed into the image of His Son...AND THEN...He can be pleased.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,

A broken and a contrite heart—
These, O God, You will not despise.

Then You shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness,
With burnt offering and whole burnt offering;
Then they shall offer bulls on Your altar. 

And immediately, coming up from the water, He saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending upon Him like a dove.  Then a voice came from heaven, “You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”  (Mark 1:10-11)

Thank you God for  You, for Your Son, and for the Holy Spirit.  May You come soon.  And may we be made ready. 

In His Love,  ❤ 

Terri 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtSmHCVzyGk

Lauren Daigle Come Alive Dry Bones with lyrics www.youtube.com revised May 31 2016