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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/john-meekin/cleanse-me/
Let's turn to the book of the Psalms, please. We're going to take another reading from the Scriptures, and our reading presently will be from the book of the Psalms, and we read in Psalm number 51. Again, as our other brethren have said, thanks so much for being with us tonight.
Everyone is very welcome in the Lord's name. The book of the Psalms and Psalm number 51, and we read the title of the psalm. These are part of the inspired text of Scripture, and this one actually gives us the background of some of the verses from Psalm 51 that we'll read together.
To the chief musician, a psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone into Bathsheba, have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions, wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
Look down to verse number seven with me, please. David again says, purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
Look at verse number 12, verse number 13, rather. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee. And those will be our readings from the Scriptures, and we trust further with the Lord's blessing.
David was the king of Israel. I'm quite sure that everyone that is here tonight, that you know that. And here as we have read from Psalm number 51, you might be asking and thinking to yourself, I wonder, as we're looking at this subject of the king of Israel, I wonder really what the king of Israel is thinking, and what is on the mind of the king of Israel.
I want you to notice, and we're going to speak together. David says this, wash me. And David says in that same verse, verse number 2, he says cleanse me. When we get to verse number 7, David speaks again, and he says, purge me.
And in verse number 7, David says, cleanse me, and so tonight, what I have before me in the gospel is something that was right in the heart of David. Wash me, cleanse me, purge me, wash me. There might be a sinner that's gathered with us here tonight, and you're not saved, and you've come to the conference, and you would like to be saved.
And as I'm preaching to you tonight, and as you're gathered with us, the one thing in your mind is this, I would like cleansing from my sins. I would like to know just like David, wash me, and cleanse me, purge me, cleanse me from all of my sins.
I was reading just a few weeks ago, and with the clip in the news media that I was reading it from, there was a video, and the interviewer was actually with a girl in India, and they were there at the Ganges River, and she was about to go down into the darkness and dirt of the river Ganges.
Now, just for background, just at that point of the river, it was full of industrial waste. It was full of untreated sewage. It was full of chemical runoff, and there was the interviewer standing with this girl just at the banks of the river, and he said to her, you're going down into the river?
Yes, she said. She said to the interviewer, she says, I'll go down into the river three times. She says, once I put myself under the water of the river the first time, that will deal with the sin of my past.
She says, then I'll come up, and I'll go down for the second time, that will deal with my sin presently. Then she said, the third time, I'll go down under the water of the river, and that will deal with all of my sin in the future of my life.
You know, folks, I sat in my little office at home, and it broke my heart. In the midst of darkness, in a people that is far from God, with dirty water flowing, there was a woman sincerely, and you know the one thing she wanted?
She wanted to be cleansed, and she would have done absolutely anything, absolutely anything for cleansing from sin. Let me ask you tonight, have you received cleansing from sin? You see what our brother Brody told you about?
There was a day in his life when he accepted the Lord Jesus, and he knew cleansing from sin. I was 16 years of age. I've told it so often in Iowa. I know there's quite a few here, and you could almost tell it for me, but I was 16 years of age, and there was only one thing I wanted.
I will never forget that Monday night, and I recall getting up off these knees, and I went back up the stairs, and the one thing I wanted above everything else was to be cleansed from sin. David, what would you like?
And King David says, and you can almost feel the pathos, and can't you see the agony in the soul of the man? King David says, wash me, cleanse me. King David reiterates it. He says, purge me, cleanse me from my sin.
There's maybe someone here tonight, and you would like cleansing for your sins. Can I tell you tonight, you have come to the right place, and you say, the right preachers? Oh no, folks, it's not in preachers, but thank God tonight we can tell you about a man, and through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins.
We are able to announce in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth that your sins can be forgiven, that your sins can be purged, that your sins can be cleansed, and that you yourself could leave this meeting, and you could go home, and the great theme of the gospel is this.
Wash me. I want you to notice there's maybe five things that I speak about in the moments that I have before me. I want you to consider with me, first of all, we'll take a look at David's deeds. The second thing that I want to speak about is David's deceit.
We will notice together David's defilement. We'll have to take a look at David's discovery, and you see by the time we get down to verse number 13, we'll have a look together at David's delight, because by the time this chapter is over, there's a man, and he is so very different.
Let me just remind you, you see people who accept Christ, they are so very different. People who trust the Lord Jesus, everything is different for them, and it was very different for David. Well, you say, what about David's deeds?
I would say there's no one here that really has done what David did. You know what David was occupied with? David stole a man's wife. That was the first thing he did. The man didn't know about it, but David got involved in something he never should have been involved in, and he stole a man's wife, and as a consequence of stealing that man's wife, he started to cover over his sin, and he lied about his sin, and so number one, he's involved in immorality.
Number two, he starts to lie and to cover over his sin, the very thing that he has done. Number three, actually, the man was a soldier. David brought him back from the war, and he said to the man, go home to your house, thinking he could cover over his sin, and the man wouldn't do it.
His name was Uriah, and David, as a consequence, sent him back to the battlefield, and he gave him a letter, and the letter was to his commanding general, Joab by name, and he said to Joab, put this man in the very forefront of the battle, and he said, when the battle is raging, tell the troops to withdraw from him so that he might lose his life.
He was guilty of murder, and here is the man. Can't you see David now? He's stolen the man's wife. He has told lies about it. He has covered it over. He has sent a letter under false pretenses. He's now guilty of murder.
I tell you, David has sinned against the Lord, and as I'm preaching to you tonight now, will you say I haven't done those things? No, maybe not, but you have sinned against the Lord, and the Bible says this, be sure, your sin will find you out.
We have got David's deeds, and they were terrible. Mind you, folks, right from our very birth, we go astray as soon as we are born, speaking lies, and our hands, they want to handle sin, and our feet, they want to pursue sin, and our eyes, they want to go after sin, and our minds, it is filled with sin, and as I'm preaching to you in the gospel tonight, mark it well, folks.
Every single one of us are just like David. David had this large, this large list of sin that I have enumerated to you, David's deeds. Let me ask you now, as I'm preaching to you in the gospel, what about your sin?
Look at all these boys and girls up front. What about your sin? There's some older folks who are with us, and they have lived lives. What about your sin? There are teenagers here. Can I challenge you teenagers tonight, and ask you in the name of God, and in the fear of God, what about your sin?
I can see David with that list of deeds before him, and David says this, wash me, and David says cleanse me. I want to be cleansed from my sin, David's deeds. The second thing, and I mentioned this one very quickly, it's not just David's deeds, but you will notice David's deceit.
He covers it over. You know what most of us do when it comes to our sin? We want it to be secret. It would be a terrible thing. You know this now. It would be a terrible thing if people began to understand what you are really like.
It would be a terrible thing if people understood what I am really like, and so we cover things, and we hide things. I was at home quite recently. We had a storm, and the storm is blowing through. Of course, Lauren, that was one of the weekends.
She was home from university, and so there was Alexia in the house. Elaine was home. I was home. The storm was blowing outside. I was working away in my study as that snowfall is coming down, and eventually I was there, and I thought, I'll make a decaf coffee, good coffee, I agree, brother, good coffee, Starbucks.
There I was making the coffee, and I thought to myself, wow. I wouldn't mind some ice cream. So I call up to my girls, and I said, hey, you want to go to Sobeys, and we'll pick up some ice cream tonight?
They said, sure, Dad. So in the midst of a snowstorm, we leave and we get to Sobeys, and I ran through the store and picked up the ice cream, and I met the two of them. Just as we're about to exit, I met the two of them, and they were carrying gummy bears and Coca-Cola bottles.
They said, Dad, can we have these, too? I said, sure. So we get back into the car, and we make it home. It was just the next day. I went to the cupboard the next day, and I spotted the packets of gummy bears and Cola bottles.
Lauren was working, Alexia was at school, and I said to myself, these characters. I know what's going to happen when they get home. You see those gummy bears and Cola bottles? There'll be none left for me.
So there was a Dutch oven there. My wife bakes bread every day. So I lifted the lid of the Dutch oven, and I put the candy into the Dutch oven. Never thought. It was later that day. The way it works when you're baking bread, apparently, using a Dutch oven, you preheat the oven.
So the oven is being heated, and my wife, never thinking, didn't lift the lid. She took the Dutch oven, she put it into the preheated oven, and she heated it for six minutes. The girls are working in the family room, I'm back down in my study, and I hear someone crying from the kitchen, and Elaine says, oh, no.
You know the rest of the story. She said, I won't tell you exactly what she said. She said, who put the gummy bears into the Dutch oven? They were melted everywhere. And I was sitting thinking to myself, you just covered over your own sin.
You've just been found out. Be sure your sin will find you out. Make no mistake about it now, that's how we handle sin. We cover it over. We do it in secret. David didn't want anyone to know about his sin, David's deeds, and David's deceit.
And as I'm speaking to you tonight, you have covered over your sin, and so have I. The third thing that I mention to you is this, what about David's defilement? As a consequence of those deeds, because of what he had done, as a consequence of David's actions covering over his sin, David knows he needs to be cleansed from his sin.
You remember what Job said, Job chapter 14. Job says, who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? And Job says, there's no one. In chapter 25 of the book of Job, Job says this, how then can man be justified with God?
Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman? Job wanted to know, cleansing from his sin. You go to the book of Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 64 and verse number 6, do you know what Isaiah says? Isaiah says, we are all as an unclean thing.
He wanted to know cleansing from his sin. Job wanted cleansing from defilement. Isaiah, he wanted cleansing from defilement. There was a dear man, Naaman, way back in the book of 2 Kings, and he comes to the prophet one day, and you say, what did Naaman want?
You remember, Naaman was a leper, and the big thing that Naaman wanted was cleansing from his sin. Job wanted cleansing, Naaman wanted cleansing, Isaiah wanted cleansing, David wanted cleansing. What about you tonight?
Would you like cleansing from your sin? Defilement of sin, oh, it's a terrible thing. We were kids. My father worked with coal. That's the black stuff, just so everyone knows. He delivered sacks of coal from a truck.
When we were kids, he used to keep those used sacks in our garage, so we used to play hide and seek. I'm sure everyone knows the premise of the game. I can still remember one day that someone had the bright idea.
I won't mention who the person was that had the bright idea, but our cousins were visiting, and someone had the bright idea that we could get one of those used coal sacks. Now, keep in mind, these are dusty, and they're dirty, and they're marked by coal dust, and so we got the boys, and we said, listen, we'll hide Robert.
So we got one of the sacks, and we pushed Robert down into the sack, and we got some of the coal, and put it over the top of the sack, so that no one could ever see that there was a boy in there. And of course, our cousin, he played the game, and he found myself, and he found Alexander, and he found David, and the rest of the cousins were all found, but not Robert.
And at last, he said, I give up, and Robert popped up out of the coal sack, and his hair was dirty, and his hands were dirty, and his feet were dirty, and his face was dirty, and it was all marked over him, and I thought to myself, wow, what are we ever going to do now?
Do you know what we did? Just what sinners do. I sent my brother Alexander, I sent him into the house, I said, go and get a face cloth, and we'll try and remove it ourselves. Am I speaking to anyone tonight, and it's just a metaphor of where you are in your sins?
Condemned in sin, defiled in sin, all of the dirt of sin touching you, touching every fiber of your being, and my brother Alexander went in home, and he got the face cloth, mom opened the door, and he says, I want a face cloth, mom.
What do you want a face cloth for? Well, he didn't want to tell her, and of course she knew. We got the face cloth, and all we did was this. We just moved the dirt around my brother's face. Mark it well now, mark it well, folks.
Here we are, and we got David's deeds. Here we are, and we got David's deceit. We will see in the passage, David's defilement, wash me. You will notice with me, David's discovery. The Lord sent a preacher to David, and he was quite a preacher.
His name is Nathan. We actually read his name right at the beginning of the psalm. He went to see David, and he told David a story. He said, King David, there was a man that had everything. He said, there was another man, and he only had one little ewe lamb.
And really what he was saying about David is this, you have everything. This man that you stole his wife, he only had his wife, and that was it, and you took her. And King David was incensed, and King David said to Nathan the prophet, the man that hath done this, he'll pay fourfold.
He will pay fourfold. And Nathan the prophet drew himself up to his full height, and he said to King David, thou art the man, you have sinned. And as soon as he said to David, you have committed the sin.
Listen to what King David says. King David says, I have sinned. And you say, here he is. How would he ever get cleansing? Oh, wait now, wait. How would he ever get cleansing? He says to the Lord, I have sinned, and the preacher says to him, and the Lord hath put away thy sins.
Your sins are gone. You know, as I'm standing here tonight, I have told you about sin. But can I tell you, if you would acknowledge your sin to God, the message from heaven is this tonight, and the Lord has put away thy sins.
Your sins can be cleansed. Oh, folks, tonight, David says, wash me. What's the answer? David, the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanseth us. David says, cleanse me. What's the answer? The blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanseth us.
David says, purge me. What's the answer? The blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanseth us from all sin. As I'm preaching to you tonight, David's great discovery. Wouldn't you like to discover it? The blood of Christ cleanseth.
Just as I conclude tonight, my brother that I was telling you about, he was the last one in the family to be saved, my brother Alexander. There were times that I wondered, would he ever be saved? He was 33 years of age, and he started to come to gospel meetings just like this, and God started to work with him.
He was on a truck one day, he and my brother David, they passed a church, and the name of the church was Living Hope. My brother took a look at that sign, and he said, I have no hope. I'll just have to perish in my sins.
They went on to the destination and arrived where they would make the delivery, and he stepped out of the truck, and as he stepped onto the pavement, he said, I'll just have to go to hell, and the next thought that touched him was this, oh, the blood of Jesus, the precious blood of Jesus, oh, the blood of Jesus, it cleanses from all sin.
He opened the door of the truck, and he said to my brother David, he said, don't tell anyone, but I think I've just got saved. Closed the door, went to make the delivery. David called my sister Grace.
He says, don't tell anyone, but we think he just got saved. She called me to Canada. I can still remember I was sitting at my desk when the call came through, and she says, John, don't tell anyone, but we think he's just got saved.
He went to the meeting that night. People tell me there's no God. He went to the meeting that night, and the first man that stepped up to speak gave out one hymn. I will give you a guess tonight what the hymn would be.
Oh, the blood of Jesus, the precious blood of Jesus, oh, the blood of Jesus, it cleanses from all sin. That man stepped up, and he read one verse from the Bible. I hardly need even to tell you what that verse is.
The blood of Jesus Christ, his son, it cleanseth us from all sin. Wouldn't you like to have your sins forgiven tonight, you folks that are gathered here? I can almost feel it. I hear David say, wash me.
I can feel him say, cleanse me. I hear it ringing, purge me, and I can feel the man saying, cleanse me from my sin. David, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. Just as I conclude tonight, David's delight.
The Lord cleansed him, and the Lord forgave him, and the Lord saved the man, and you say, he'll keep it to himself. Really? Really? Anyone that the Lord saves, they never want to keep it to themselves.
Listen to what David says. He says, Lord, if I'm cleansed from my sins, I will make sure that others will hear about this God of exceeding rich grace. I will make sure others hear about a God of mercy.
I will teach transgressors their ways, and sinners will be returned unto thee. As I'm speaking tonight, could I advise you, trust the Lord Jesus. If you trust Christ tonight, your sins will be forgiven.
Wash me. Cleanse me. Purge me. Cleanse me. Let's pray. Our Father, we would just bow our hearts before thee now. In the name of the Lord Jesus, we come into thy courts, and we thank thee again for all thy mercy.
We bless thee, Father, for the wonderful gift of thy Son. We thank thee that thou didst ever give him to the shame and the death of the cross. And Father, we bless thee again for precious blood that was shed at Calvary.
Remember this audience, Lord. We pray thy blessing. We look upon thy face as we consider tomorrow, and we ask the Lord's mercy as we consider another day. Help us then, as we sing a concluding hymn. Take us home safely, we pray.
In the Savior's name, amen. Let's sing together 322, 322. We sing this lovely hymn. When I survey the wondrous cross, on which the Prince of glory died, my riches gain I count but loss, and poor contempt on all my pride.
We'll sing verses 1, verse 3, and verse 4, and our meeting's over.