Psalm 53:6 "Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! When God bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad."
David begins this Psalm with the doctrine of total depravity of man. This is a
very basic teaching of Scripture that sometimes is overlooked. Let me place a
few of the previous verses just now and let us think about it. "God
looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that
did understand, that did seek God. (3) Every one of them is gone
back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not
one. (4) Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my
people as they eat bread: they have not called upon God." (Psalm 53:2-4) These thoughts are repeated again by the Apostle Paul in the book of Romans,
chapter 3. When this teaching is properly understood, the blessing of salvation
through Jesus Christ becomes even more so very sweet to us.
What do those verses teach us? Again, we call this the doctrine of total
depravity of man. Before the Lord came to us by His Holy Spirit to give us new
life in Jesus Christ, there was no ability nor desire upon any individual for
the things of God. In fact, Paul goes a step farther with it in his letter to
the Corinthians. "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them,
because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Corinthians 2:14) The
things of God are foolishness to the individual who has not been born of the
Spirit of God. I would recommend you to read that entire 2nd chapter of 1
Corinthians. Especially the second half of that chapter describes the manner in
which we can understand the things of God. He is very plain spoken in telling
us only the Holy Spirit can reveal to us the things of God.
David understood this to some degree as the Lord moved him to write those first
verses of this 53rd Psalm. Let's look at what he wrote in verses 2-4. God
looked down from heaven ... and... .there were none that did understand Him.
Everyone was gone back away from Him. There is none that does good, NO, NOT
ONE. There was none that called upon God. Why? When we take the
explanation of 1 Corinthians 2:14, all this was foolishness to the natural man,
that one that is not born of God. It is called being totally depraved, or
totally unable to comprehend nor to do anything of a spiritual nature. This was
true of every one of us before we were born again by the Holy Spirit. As we are
told in Ephesians 2:1-2, we were "DEAD in trespasses and sins." This
grand truth is the reason I love my two favorite words of the Bible: "But
God.." But God gave us eternal life by His wonderful amazing grace through
Jesus Christ.
David was pondering these things when he cried out, "Oh that the
salvation of Israel were come out of Zion!" You and I are so very
blessed to understand that indeed God sent His "salvation of Israel".
He sent His blessed precious Son, Jesus Christ, into this world. He was born of
the seed of David. He came to this earth to save His people from our sins. We
could not save ourselves. Our parents could not save us. Neither could our
friends nor our pastors save us. Think about Lazarus being dead in the grave.
If the love of family and friends could have saved him from that grave, they
would have. But they couldn't. Jesus did!
We can say as we read our text verse for today, Thank God that "salvation
of Israel" did come out of Zion! Thank you Lord for saving us
through the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have
heard the joyful sound, "JESUS SAVES! JESUS SAVES!"