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. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

David’s Desire

David asks God to restore the relationship that he once shared with God. He has not lost that relationship but he has lost the joy and the blessings from it. So he cried out for restoration.

He asks to be purged with hyssop and then he will be clean, to be washed that he might be once again “whiter than snow.”

Hyssop is a small leafy shrub that was used in the purification of the leper and in removing the defilement resulting from contact with a dead body.

David purposely choice this phrasing because of what he sought from God. David says, I am like a leper longing for his soul to be restored to purness, like white snow, a like a defiled person being restored to my family.

By looking at what David asks God to restore we can see how much he had lost through his unconfessed sin.

He asks God to restore his spiritual hearing, “make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.”

In vs. 10 he asks for God to, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”

In vs. 11 he asks for God to restore his fellowship, “Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.”

In vs. 12 We hear the real loss David felt, not his relationship with God, not his salvation through God, but he ask in vs. 12 for God to, “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.”

He had lost his spiritual awareness, his purity, his fellowship and more than all else he had lost the joy of his salvation.

It is thought that God gave David over a year to confess and repent, but he did not until Nathan confronted him with the story of the stolen and slaughtered lamb. When Nathan at the end of that story pointed his finger at the King and said, “Thou art the Man” David knew his sin was not hidden and he must have realized how much he had lost, how much is refusal to confess and acknowledge his sin had cost him.

Unconfessed Sin’s Cost

When you consider all that David lost and what his sin had cost him you can’t hep but think what does sin cost us?

If you are not a child of God then sin costs you eternal life. Your immortal soul will spend eternity in the eternal punishment of Hell. That is a cost far to high for any sane person to think it was worth it to exclude God and his love from my earthly life.

But even the believer pays a price for unconfessed and unrepentant sin and though it is not an eternal price we pay, it is still a terrible loss.

Like David we lose joy. We lose gladness, we lose the purity that comes from forgiveness, we lose the sense of our spirit being right with God. We lose fellowship with God, we lose the conviction and direction of the Holy Spirit.

We lose the joy of our salvation. And that is too high a cost for trying to hide or ignore my sin.

I remember the first time I felt the “Joy of the Lord” when I walked the aisle and said yes I want Jesus in my life. I have felt it time and time again since then. With every blessing of a newborn child, with every altar call I’ve answered, with every soul I seen accept Jesus as their savior.

Peter used a phrase to describe our joy of salvation in 1 Peter 1:8 Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

What a beautiful phrase, “joy unspeakable and full of glory.” That is so good they should write a song about it. Oh, wait they have.

Joy Unspeakable

1 I have found His grace is all complete;
He supplieth every need.
While I sit and learn at Jesus’ feet,
I am free, yes, free indeed.

I have found the joy no tongue can tell,
How its waves of glory roll!
It is like a great o’erflowing well,
Springing up within my soul.

Refrain: It is joy unspeakable and full of glory,
Full of glory, full of glory.
It is joy unspeakable and full of glory;
O the half has never yet been told!

That is what David had lost and that he so earnestly now desired to be restored. Don’t let sin lurk in your life, unconfessed and unacknowledged because it is costing you dearly. Don’t wait until, God send a Nathan to point his finger into the face of your soul and say, “You are the one.” Ask God to restore the joy of my salvation.