49/Psalm 51
Let us not be cast away. God isn't going to remove His Holy Spirit from us if, by faith, we have received Jesus Christ as Savior. But we can be put on the shelf. We can grieve the Spirit of God. We can certainly quench Him so that His in– fluence is diminished and minimized. At times perhaps we can feel the ultimate coldness in our own spirits with our in– dividual relationship to the Lord. This is why David goes on to pray in the 12th verse, one of the most familiar petitions of the entire chapter, "Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with Thy free Spirit." Now those words, "free Spirit" could perhaps be best translated a "willing spirit." We'll talk more about that a little later. Think for a moment about this aspect of restoration. It means to go back to the starting point. I've been interested to see how nostalgia seems to be back in and so popular. People are saving old Coke bottles and even posters 30 or 40 years old. There is a great interest in the revival of old radio pro– grams. Just think of all the things being brought back again. Old cars are certainly in. My wife told me that some of the clothes she kept in her closet long enough, she can now wear again. (I like that.) Furniture, antiques are coming back in. In fact, it's hard to find qualified people willing to restore them, there are so many people interested in antiques. It's even popular to try restoring our physiques. But of all the products on the market intended for restoring these different things, there's absolutely nothing which can restore our souls. That is, other and apart from the prayer of confession and cleans– ing which David offers here. Notice that he's saying, "Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation." He's not talking about the assurance of salvation. He is not talking about the understanding of salvation, but rather the satisfaction that comes from it. No doubt, the ma– jority of those in our listening audience know and love Jesus Christ as Savior. But what about your personal relationship to Him? I wonder, h~s the sparkle gone out? ls the j.oy miss– ing? You know, if you truly received the Lord by faith, then
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