Lesson 12: For Your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great.
www.bible.com/bible/59/psa.25

O Lord, Lord! I pray You with holy David, rebuke me not in Your anger, neither chasten me in Your hot displeasure. For my loins are filled with a loathsome disease, and there is no soundness in my flesh. My sins have borne me down. There is no peace in my bones. From the bottom of my heart I humble myself with beloved Daniel. O dear Lord! O You great and terrible God! I have sinned and done unjustly. Before You I have been ungodly; I wandered from You, and walked not in Your commands and statutes.

Your preferred grace I rejected. Your holy word I thrust from me. Your beloved Son I crucified; I grieved Your Holy Spirit and I acted unjustly in all my doings. O Lord, the multitude of my sins frighten me.

There is no evil but what I am guilty of. I was as envious as Cain, proud and unchaste as Sodom, unmerciful as Pharaoh, unruly as Korah, lustful as Simri, disobedient as Saul, idolatrous as Jeroboam, hypocritical as Joab, haughty as Nebuchadnezzar, covetous as Balaam, drunken as Nabal, insolent as Sennacherib, blasphemous as Rabsaces, blood-thirsty as Herod, lying as Ananias. Yes, I say with king Manasseh, my sins are more numerous than the sands of the sea shore and the stars in the heavens. They trouble me by day and by night. Nothing good dwells in my flesh. All that I seek is unrighteousness and sin. That which I would not do, that I seek and do. I, miserable man, do not know where to go. If I go into myself, I find great faults, impure desires, a vessel of sins.


If I go to my neighbor, he has nothing to give me so that here nothing else avails but Your word. The wages of sin, says Paul, is death. But Your grace is eternal life. This grace I seek and desire. For this is the only ointment which can heal my soul. The sinful woman availed herself of this, Luke 7, as soon as she was aware of her wants. David availed himself of this when he disgraced Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, and slew him. Great was his distress; he saw his wickedness and said, "I have sinned against the Lord." He desired balm. "O God!" said he, "according unto the multitude of Your tender mercies blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin," Ps. 51:1-2. In the same hour he heard the gracious word of the prophet, "The Lord also has put away Your sin." His troubled heart was quieted. He praised his name, proclaimed his mercy, and exalted his grace above all his works.

O Lord! O dear Lord! I, a grieved sinner, have the same disease. I desire the same balm and I desire help from You. I seek only comfort with You, O Lord, for Your holy name's sake. Help me, that I may eternally praise You. Wash me from all my sins, and be merciful to me in all my transgressions, for they are great.