Peter Brandon preaches on the theme 'What Is Wrong With the World?' using Psalm 51 as a foundation. He emphasizes that the root of the world's problems lies within each individual, as we are all born with a sinful nature. Through the story of King David's sin with Bathsheba and his subsequent confession, Brandon illustrates the importance of acknowledging our transgressions and seeking God's mercy for true restoration. He highlights that understanding our sinfulness leads to a deeper relationship with God and the joy of salvation. Ultimately, the sermon calls for personal reflection and repentance, encouraging listeners to come to God for cleansing and renewal.

The reading tonight comes from Psalm 51 and I'm going to read from the first verse of that lovely psalm. This is a psalm of David when Nathan, the prophet, came unto him after he had sinned with Bathsheba and he writes in confession Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness. According unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, the only, have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. 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 my iniquities. 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. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. O Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise, for thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion. Build thou the walls of Jerusalem. Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering. Then shall they offer bullets upon thine altar. Now I am sure God will bless the reading of the Bible to us. A number of years ago there was a leading article in the British Daily Telegraph on the subject, What is wrong with the world? And I believe over the weeks almost 20 well-known authors gave their opinion. And then there was one man, a national poet, a man by the name of G. K. Chesterton, who gave us the shortest answer, and this is what he wrote. Dear sir, what is wrong with the world? I am wrong, yours truly, Chesterton. And my dear friends, he put his finger right on the pulse. You see, what is wrong with the world is wrong with us. When we go through this psalm we shall see very clearly that every single child that is born into this world is born with a potential to sin. But before we get to this point, let me give you an introduction to the author of this psalm. He was one of the greatest men and greatest intellectuals that ever lived. As you know, an intellectual is not a man that has mastered one subject but many subjects, and therefore there are very few intellectuals in the world. This man was one. First of all, he was an outstanding farmer. Secondly, he was a unique poet. One or two of his poems are still classical in the world today. He was also an inventor of musical instruments. In fact, many of our stringed instruments were originally made by David. He was also a brilliant theologian and he not only knew a lot about God, he knew God intimately. He was also an outstanding monarch. Yes, and an unrivaled statesman. And to crown it all, he was a prophet of God and that is King David. Right in the midst of his reign, the spirit of laziness gripped him. And when laziness grips a man, sometimes he can't sleep. Because sometimes, the secret for sleeplessness is a good hard day's work. And I think if we tried that, we would prove that to be true. Well, this man in the year that the kings went out to battle, he stayed at home. And he got up from his bed one evening and he saw the object of beauty washing herself and he lusted in his mind and very quickly he fell into a sin and that sin marred his life until the day of his death. I have no doubt about this if you were speaking to David on his death bed and if you said to him is there one thing in your life you regret, he would say this the moment I sinned with Bathsheba and the moment I put her husband to death. There was a man in his reign whose name was Nathan one of the greatest prophets that ever lived. This man received the secret from God and he came into the presence of David and he exposed his sin. And at that moment he could have put Nathan to death. But he humbled himself eventually before the Lord and he wrote this amazing psalm that has brought hundreds of people to the Lord Jesus. Now I'm not going to take up the psalm because I want to finish by quarter to according to the printing and therefore I'm going to bring three great facts to your attention concerning evil. First of all David's comprehension of sin. Secondly we shall look David's conviction of sin. And then right at the end we are going to finish on a high note David's confession of sin. First of all his comprehension. He uses three words to describe his evil. One is sin. The other is transgression. And the other is iniquity. Now we must not confuse the meaning of these words. If we can get to the root of them tonight every one of us here will receive a blessing. The word sin as far as the Hebrew word is concerned comes from the idea at least the imagery of a Jewish archer. And he shoots for the gold we would call it the bullseye. And the arrow transgresses and misses the mark and when the arrow missed the mark they would say you've sinned you've missed the mark. Now what does this basically mean when it applies for the human race? Well we must go right the way back to the beginning. And first of all we must look at the world in which we live. Now God made this wonderful cosmos this wonderful creation that we call terra firma and he made the world for the glory of man. And all of us appreciate the beauties of creation. But when he made man he did not make man so that he would please himself. He made man in such a unique way that he could have the capacity of bringing pleasure and glory to God. And therefore my dear friends the secret of sin is this when a man misses the mark and instead of glorifying God he pleases himself. And that's what that scripture means that we often quote all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. It means we miss glorifying God. Now you say well work it out in a practical way. A man gets up in the morning and goes into the bathroom and shaves and showers and he just does it for himself. That's sin. He should do that for the glory of God. He goes down and eats his breakfast and there is nothing wrong in eating breakfast. But if he is not doing it for the glory of God it is sinning. Then I am going to imagine he is an engineer and he is working at the lathe and he is doing some screw cutting and he is not doing it for the glory of God He is doing it for a wage. He is sinning. So basically sin simply means when you do something and you don't do it for the glory of God. Now think with me. If everyone in Sydney went to work for the glory of God there would be a transformation in Sydney almost overnight. And therefore dear friends can you see by that simple fact that we sin almost as frequently as an old fashioned ticking clock. Secondly the word sin means lawlessness. That's what John says. Sin is lawlessness. It is disobedience. Now what does this mean? When God made this world he made it for the glory of man and it pleases us. When he made man he made him for his glory and he made man so that he might obey God. Now may I raise my voice and say this. A man is blissfully happy when he submits to the will of God. And he becomes a misery when he just pleases himself. There is no real fun in selfishness. Not in the last analysis. Now God's will wasn't vindictive. It wasn't a will that was dictatorial. God's will was for the blessing of all the people that he was going to bring into this world. But you see sin means doing my own will doing my own thing instead of the will of God. And therefore if we look at ourselves very clearly and I hope we are doing that tonight we can see all of us we sin over and over again because we please ourselves instead of pleasing God. Now in your mind there will be this question. But how do we know when we are pleasing God? Has God come and given us down to earth rules? Yes. Not many though. You know it would be interesting if we could work out all the rules connected with a cricket match. Or all the rules connected with rugby. Or all the rules connected with soccer. And all the rules connected with our roadways and seaways and airways. In fact there are so many we need solicitors to understand them. And they get confused so they need barristers. Now listen to this. When God wanted to govern the whole conduct of the world he gave us 10 commandments. And every time I break one of those commandments I sin. Now you might say well I kept some and I have broken others. Well my dear friends what ones have you kept? Now I know what you are going to say. Thou shalt not kill. Wait a moment. In the Old Testament it says thou shalt not kill. But in the New Testament John says if you hate your brother you are a murderer. That means bitterness. Ah but some moral person and thank God there is a moral person here tonight. Someone will say I've never committed adultery. The Lord Jesus said that if you look after a person and lust in your mind you have committed it in your mind. Now can you see when he came light came. And therefore he wasn't concerned so much with the action but with the thought that promotes the action. Dear friends if we went through those commandments we would discover that nearly all of us here have broken every single one of those commandments. Now of course if you break the law of the road and you are caught you are punished and that's right. What's God's punishment for breaking the law? Now here it is. The law was given so that every mouth may be stopped and that the whole world might become guilty before God for by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight for by the law is the knowledge of sin. Because we have broken God's law we are guilty before God. And what is the guilt? The wages of sin is death. Now here's a problem. If the wages of sin is death and it is why are we alive? If when we sin it's death none of us should be alive. So what does God mean by death? When God speaks about death spiritually it means the separation of God from the sinner. Why? Because he is infinitely holy. Now if we die in our sins with our guilt we are eternally separated from God. Now that's a serious statement. But that's the state of the world and that's why Christ came into the world. But we must go deeper. He uses this word iniquity. Let me quote the scripture. Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Now what does the word iniquity mean? We don't use it basically today. So what does it mean? It means rolling something under your tongue. You know sometimes a child may irritate you because constantly being disobedient and you're rolling something under your tongue. You've often had the experience. Now that's the meaning of the word. In other words it means inherent sin. It has to do with the nature. And therefore what he was basically saying is this. I know I have broken those ten commandments and therefore I'm guilty before God. But the reason why I'm guilty before God is this. I've got an evil nature with which I was born. And that's the world's problem. You see Joseph was right when he said what is wrong with the world? I am wrong. He realized he was born with a sinful nature. He realized he had broken the commandments of God. And he was guilty before God. Now beloved friends could I say this to you? Not vindictively but in love. Do you understand that you're guilty before God? Do you understand that if you died in your sins you would be lost? Now a man might know all this and say something like this and I've heard them So what? We've missed the mark. So what? We've broken the ten commandments over and over again and they even laugh at it. They might say well yes we have been born with an evil nature I know that. So what? Until something happens. And I hope it happens tonight. Coming to David there was a man who was made of solid steel. At least his spine. And he was a man that was really intimate with God. And God used to reveal secrets to him in the sanctuary. And it must have been a shock for Nathan when God revealed all the secrets of David. I can almost imagine him saying Lord are you sure about that? And then God placed in his heart a kind of a parable and told him to share it with King David. I can imagine him putting on his cloak and swallowing a little and being rather nervous and going to the greatest king then in the world. Coming to the palace asking for an audience with his majesty King David the son of Jesse and then being ushered right into his presence. Perhaps his head would be down and he would be occasionally looking up at the king and he would say your majesty I want to present to you two men. One is rich and he has herds and flocks and the other is poor and he has nothing but a hue lamb. And he knew David loved poor people. One day a wayfaring traveller came to this rich man and he was so miserly and mean. This poor man all he had was a little hue lamb that was like a pet to him and the children and he took this lamb from the poor man he killed it, cooked it and gave it to the wayfaring traveller. David was hopping with infuriation. When he controlled himself he said something like this. The man that has done this thing shall pay four thousand and die. And he looked at him eye to eye and said thou art the man. And he exposed his sin. At that moment David could have called a soldier and he could have said take this man's head off. But he didn't. If he had done that he would have lost his kingship. He went into the presence of God and he wrote this psalm and this is what he said. I know my transgression. He didn't say I know our transgression. I know my transgression. Now friends there's someone in this room a million times multiplied greater than Nathan. In this room there is the mighty Holy Spirit of God and he's here to bring conviction concerning sin. And I pray and trust earnestly that everyone may come under conviction tonight. And when he begins to move in our hearts we forget all have sinned we forget the nation sinning and we say with the psalmist I know my transgression. It seems as though God builds a sanctuary all around us and he comes into that sanctuary and with that accusing finger he says you have sinned and you're guilty before God. That's the first thing. Secondly you can almost imagine David trying to escape from this conviction and so he goes downstairs and he calls his boy with the arrows and they go out and he's just going to shoot at a venison when he hears thou art the man. He calls the boy and then he calls his butler and he wants a strong drink and he tries to drink himself into a stupor and in the midst of his drinking he hears thou art the man. He goes to bed under a dragon and two o'clock in the morning he hears thou art the man and then he cries out my sin is ever before me. It was chasing him following him standing before him hooting at him, roaring at him you're the man. He was under conviction. Friends when God is dealing with us like that we are very near to forgiveness. Then he begins to calculate and he says what have I done and he looks at himself very carefully and he says I've sinned against my own soul I'm unclean. He looks at his hands and he says they're stained with the blood of a godly man. He looks at Bathsheba he looks at the grave of Uriah and he says I've sinned against them. He looks at the millions there in Israel and he says I've sinned against the whole of Israel and then he looked up and got the biggest shock in his life. He saw the heart of God weep and this is what he says forgive the drama it's not so much I've sinned against myself or Bathsheba or Israel but my sins have wounded the heart of God friends our sins have wounded the Trinity to such an extent that Jesus Christ will be perpetually wounded because of our sins. When he died on the cross and this man was broken may I say this to my Christian brothers and sisters I'm praying that we shall see that in some of our meeting people broken before the Lord as they get a glimpse of the holiness of God and the wickedness of sin David was convicted then in the midst of his conviction he gets enlightenment and with this I'll close he says if he uses free words to describe his evil he uses free words in order to describe the forgiveness he says blot out my transgression now what it doesn't mean it doesn't mean putting a great blot upon your evil so people can't see it it means give me a clean sheet in other words he got the vision of John the great seer when John saw the great white throne he says the books were open what does that mean God takes a detailed record of every life every single life is being recorded meticulously by God so that when a man stands before the great white throne the books are opened and God reveals everything David knew this and there was something like this going through his mind on the 22nd of April laziness the 26th of April sinning in my mind with Bathsheba the 27th in big letters adultery on May the 4th Uriah put to death and he realized everything had been recorded by God and therefore he looks up with squinted vision and he says this blot it out Lord if you can give me a clean sheet and hallelujah he can can I let out another one hallelujah he can give you a clean sheet but he looks at another one and he says wash me thoroughly from my iniquity now the word washing there is not with full of soap it's the old fashioned idea of Indian dobing when they take a cloth find a smooth stone and they knock the dirt out by thrashing and therefore the word basically means wash me by beating beloved friends there was only one man that was born sinless that was Jesus Christ isn't that lovely only one man that kept the law and that was Jesus Christ for he gave it at Sinai there was only one man that could deal with the sin of the world and that was the son of God you see a perfect man couldn't deal with the sin of the world impossible only God can deal with the sin of the world and so it necessitated that Jesus should be the son of man spotless and pure and the son of God and he went to the cross and on that cross as he was suspended between heaven and earth and I want to say this for the glory of God the greatest thing in the universe took place he not only bore our sins in his own body on the tree but he bore the judgment and can I say this carefully God never missed one sin not one every single sin was punished in Christ on that cross that's why he let out with a loud voice my God my God why hast thou forsaken me and then he said beautifully finished and God's judgment had passed on him and that's what he was saying Lord through the beating of the Messiah for the strokes that he will receive oh God wash me in his precious blood and wash me thoroughly but he doesn't finish he uses now a word that baffles us it's cleanse me from my sin now my dear friends this is completely beyond me and therefore I've had to go to a Hebrew scholar and a man who was an outstanding Hebrew scholar really a genius gives us the meaning of the word and this is what it says Dr. Barron says it means cleanse all my past sins not just the past sins that I see but all the past sins that you see that's tremendous cleanse all these present mountainous sins adultery, murder defeat, life cleanse them Lord then he goes further Lord you know every single sin that I will commit cleanse all my future sins but he goes further and then according to David Barron this is what he says so cleanse all my sins and now he uses an ungrammatical phrase purposely that all my sins become unsins and I stand before thee perfect and hallelujah he can do that my dear friends he can cleanse all sins through the precious blood of Christ so that you're in Christ and you're complete in him and God's waiting to do that tonight oh dear friends I want to forget now that I'm standing on this platform I want you now to forget me and just hear a voice I want you now to come as David come and use that lovely prayer blot out my transgression wash me thoroughly from my iniquity cleanse me from my sin so that you can go home a completely new creature we were in Edinburgh oh my I shall never forget this and a titled lady I won't mention her name she was a baroness was coming to the meeting and one night I spoke on Romans 7 the exceeding sinfulness of sin and I suppose in that beautiful chapel there would be nearly 400 people and when this lady came out she hit my hand like that and she was infuriated that's the only time I'd seen a lady almost use violence on a preacher and it upset me I don't like to see people leaving like that two or three nights afterwards I was taking the scripture for by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves it's the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast and I was explaining how works can never save you I saw this lady coming I could see she was dreadfully upset and she seemed to lose all her dignity and what she said could not be repeated and it hurt me well it was a three weeks mission and we were coming to the last week and it was a Tuesday night and she was leaving the building I forget the subject that I took and for the first time she shook me by the hand how pleased I was and then the last night I took up the subject the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanseth us from all sin I knew she was in the congregation but I didn't see her leaving and I went into the enquiry room it would be where that little room is there if there's a room and there were six people kneeling and one person was the baroness I slipped out because she was weeping profusely and then when she came out she came to me and she said Mr. Brandon when I first heard you I was infuriated but I said why madam? she said you broke all the props I was leaning on to get to heaven and then she said come with me and she showed me a little chair and in the cup of that chair there was a little pool of tears and she said this just there I said this prayer just as I am without one plea but that thy blood was shed for me and that thou bidst me come to thee O Lamb of God I come and she had peace with God would you mind if I pointed what about you? you you tonight wouldn't it be lovely if someone came to Christ like that