Scripture Reading: “…wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” (Psalm 51:7) 

As David will elaborate upon in the succeeding verse, sin not only has its fearful consequences, but also its accompanying miseries. In light of this, one cannot help but ponder why so few sinners ever become penitent. 

According to Isaiah, sinners refuse to repent, despite being beaten black and blue by their sins, because sin makes sinners sick in the head (Isaiah 1:3-5). This fallen world is the victim of a spiritual insanity, which alone explains its spiritual masochism. No matter the consequences suffered, the miseries incurred, or even the toll taken on others, we continue to sin and refuse to repent. 

In spite of the sinner’s sin-induced insanity, God invites the sinner to come to Him, which is the only reasonable thing for the sinner to do (Isaiah 1:18). God promises every prodigal who comes to Him, as a result of finally coming to himself in the wallow of sin’s pigpen (Luke 15:15-18), that “though [his] sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” and “though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Truly, craziness is the only explanation for the sinner’s refusal to do the reasonable thing and come to God to have his sins washed away.

David did the only reasonable thing any sinner can do when he came to God praying for his sins to be washed away. He knew that God alone can make the sinner clean. Will you, like David and the prodigal son, come to yourself and do the reasonable thing; or will you continue to wallow in the madness of sin’s mire?

“Come, ye sinners, lost and hopeless,
Jesus’ blood can make you free;
For He saved the worst among you,
When He saved a wretch like me.

And I know, yes, I know
Jesus’ blood can make the vilest sinner clean,
And I know, yes, I know
Jesus’ blood can make the vilest sinner clean.” (Anna W. Waterman)