WASH ME THOROUGHLT FROM MINE INIQUITY.

 
DECEMBER 9.
 

Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity.
Psalm 51:2

 
SIN is spiritual filthiness.
 
It defiles the conscience, corrupts the imagination, deprives the heart, perverts the will, pollutes the breath, sets the tongue on fire of hell, strains the life, and renders the man totally and eternally unfit for heaven.
 
It is God's work to cleanse a sinner.
 
No one else can.
 
The sinner cannot cleanse himself; he is without the means, the will, or the power.
 
But God in mercy does, and he does it by his Son, atoning; by his Spirit, renewing; by his providence, working; and by his truth, purifying.
 
He saves us by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost.
 
The passage contains the believer’s prayer.
 
“Wash me.”
 
“Wash me thoroughly.”
 
It is “my iniquity, my sin.”
 
Wash me, for I have discovered my filthiness; I loath myself on account of it; and I long to be delivered from it.
 
Wash me thoroughly, take out every stain, erase every impression, make me whiter than snow.
 
Sin always pollutes us.
 
A believer cannot rest in pollution.
 
A backslider must be cleansed before he is restored.
 
God will have us smart for sin, before he cleanse us from sin.
 

O wash my soul from every stain,

And make my guilty conscience clean;

Here on my heart the burden lies,

And past offences pain my eyes.

 
James Smith 1849