If we look at the Thirty-second Psalm, we shall see there he had begun, by trying to deceive himself, to excuse himself before God.  But that had only made him the more miserable.  ’When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my daily complaining.  For Thy hand was heavy on me night and day:  my moisture was turned to the drought of summer.’  Then he had tried sacrifices.  He had fancied, I suppose, that he could make God pleased with him again by showing great devoutness, by offering bullocks and goats without number, as sin-offerings and peace-offerings; but that made him no happier.  At last he found out that God required no sacrifice but a broken heart.  That was what God wanted—­a broken and a contrite heart; for David to be utterly ashamed of himself, utterly broken down and silenced, so that he had nothing left to plead—­neither past good deeds, nor present devoutness, nor sacrifices:  nothing but, ’O God, I deserve all Thou canst lay on me, and more.  Have mercy on me—­mercy is all I ask.’

There was nothing for him, you see, but to make a clean breast of it; to face his sin, and all its shame and abomination, and confess it all, and throw himself on God’s mercy.  And when he did that, there, then, and at once, as Nathan told him, God put away his sin.  As David says himself, ’I said, I will confess my sins unto the Lord, and so Thou forgavest the wickedness of my sin.’

As it is written, ’If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’

And now, my friends, what lesson may we learn from this?  It is easy to say, We have not sinned as deeply as David, and therefore his story has nothing to do with us.  My friends, whether we have sinned as deeply as David or not, his story has to do with you, and me, and every soul in this church, and every soul in the whole world, or it would not be in the Bible.  For no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation; that is, it does not only point at one man here and another there:  but those who wrote it were moved by the Holy Ghost, who lays down the eternal universal laws of holiness, of right and good, which are right and good for you, and me, and all mankind; and therefore David’s story has to do with you and me every time we do wrong, and know that we have done wrong.

Now, my friends, when you have done a wrong thing, you know your conscience torments you with it; you are uneasy, and discontented with yourselves, perhaps cross with those about you; you hardly know why:  or rather, though you do know why, you do not like to tell yourself why.