Adrian Rogers - How to Come Back When You're Down (02/07/2026)
In Psalm 51, Pastor Adrian Rogers preaches on David’s deep repentance after his grievous sins of adultery and murder, showing how even great saints can fall but can come back to God. He explains the capability of sin in believers, the heavy consequences it brings—like soiling the soul, saturating the mind, stinging the conscience, saddening the heart, sickening the body, souring the spirit, and sealing the lips—and God’s wonderful way back through confidence in His love, honest confession, and complete cleansing by Christ’s blood for full restoration and joy.
How to Come Back When You Are Down – Psalm 51
Take your Bibles and turn to Psalm 51. And while you’re turning, may I tell you that the devil does this. The devil will tempt us to sin, and he will say, “You can get away with it. You can get away with it. It’s all right. You can get away with it.” And he is the tempter. And then after you sin, he becomes the accuser. And he says, “You’ll never get away with it. You’ll never get away with it.” And what he wants to do is to get you off balance, get you out of the will of God and bring discouragement to you and make you feel that you can never, ever again come back.
I want to talk to you today about “How to Come Back When You Are Down”. Now, Psalm 51 is the story of David’s repentance after he had sinned. You know that David committed the sin of adultery and then trying to cover it up, he committed the sin of, at the best, manslaughter, at the worst, coldblooded murder. But this Psalm is the Psalm of a penitent, because not only was David a great sinner, David was a great repenter. And that’s why I love Psalm 51.
Three basic things I want you to think about. The very first thing is this: the capability of sin in the saint. Now what I mean by that is that any of us have the capability to sin. When we get saved that does not mean that we lose our capacity to sin. Many times sin in the saint is an unexpected opportunity and an undetected weakness. And when those two come together, we fall into sin.
And the Bible says in First John 1:8, “If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” Now we’ve already told you that when the child of God sins, if he’s truly a child of God, that sin cannot take away his salvation. But that does not mean that he can sin with impunity.
I want to say just as surely you put your hand on a hot stove, you get burned. If you’re bound to sin, you’re bound to suffer.
The Capability of Sin – Even Saints Can Fall
I remember reading years ago about an exprize fighter who got saved and felt God had called him to preach. But nobody really wanted to give him a pulpit in a church, and so he set up a little pulpit of his own on the street corner in West Madison, in Chicago. And there he would preach. And he had his congregation who would come and he also had his detractors who would come. And they would throw eggs at him and they would throw rotten vegetables and fruit at him.
And he had a little American flag over here and a Christian flag over here. And there’s a policeman would stand there to keep things from breaking out into a full-fledged riot because this prizefighter was saved, but not entirely sanctified. And so, this was the situation, when there was a certain man there who was a pseudo intellectual and a cynic who loved to come and to see if he could confuse the exprize fighter and get him all befuddled.
And so they would have their little arguments that generated much more heat than light. But one day this former prizefighter, this former pugilist was ready for him. He said, “You say none of the Bible is true?” He said, “That’s right, I reject it all.” He said, “Well if I can prove that just one verse in the Bible is true will you apologize?” He said, “Yes, I will.”
With that, the former prizefighter reached out and took this man by the nose and twisted his nose so severely that the blood began to stream down both nostrils. And then he threw back his shoulders, opened his Bible to Proverbs chapter 30 verse 33 and read, “Surely the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood.” And he said, “Now,” he said, “you’ll have to admit that is true. I want you to apologize to me.”
And he said, “That whole verse says, ‘The churning of milk bringeth forth butter and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood.’ Well, I want to tell you that as surely, as surely as the churning of milk brings butter, as surely as the wringing of the nose brings forth blood, if you’re bound to sin, you’re bound to suffer.”
Let no one think that the eternal security of the believer is in any way to be construed as a license to sin. God forbid. If you’re bound to sin, you’re bound to suffer. Whether you’re saved or whether you’re lost.
Now, I want us to move not only from the capability of sin, to the consequences of sin. What happens when a Christian sins? I want to list some things here.
Look in Psalm 51 verses 1 and 2. David says, “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.”
The Heavy Consequences of Sin in a Believer’s Life
Now the first thing that sin does in the life of a child of God, the first consequence is this: it soils his soul. David says, “Wash me, cleanse me.” Now why did David do that? Well, he felt dirty. He’s not dirty physically; he’s a king. He bathed in his lavish, marble tub. He slept on his silky sheets. He wore his royal robes and yet he feels grimy. He feels filthy. He feels dirty.
Did you know that’s one way that you can know that you’re saved? Not whether or not you can sin, but does your sin make you feel dirty? You see, there’s a difference between a child of God and a child of the devil. The child of a devil sins and it doesn’t bother him. He may take God’s name in vain and you rebuke him. And he says, “What’d I say? Or what’s wrong with that?” He has no difficultly with sin.
There’s a difference between a child of God and a child of Satan. There’s just like a pig wallows, and do you know no pig has ever felt dirty. No pig has ever said, “Whoa is me, I’m a dirty pig.” A sheep may fall in the mud, it wants to get out, but the pig just lies there because that’s the pig’s nature. The pig doesn’t feel dirty.
The difference between a child of God and a child of the devil is this. The child of God may lapse into sin and he loathes it. The child of the devil leaps into sin and he loves it. Now David sinned, but David felt dirty. He felt grimy. He said, “O God, wash me, cleanse me.”
Come up close and I want to tell you something. If you can sin and that sin does not make you feel grimy and dirty, I doubt that you’ve ever been saved. I doubt that you have the Holy Spirit living in you.
Now that’s the first thing sin does. The second thing sin does, not only does it soil the soul, but sin also saturates the mind. Notice in Psalm 51 verse 3, “For I acknowledge my transgression: I acknowledge my transgression: and my sin is ever before me.” Ever before me. Night and day, day and night.
The thing that David had done, reverberates through his soul and echoes through his conscience. He cannot get rid of it. It is there. It is an indelible mark. It is a wound to his psyche. It saturates his mind. Now if you can sin and easily forget that sin I doubt that you’ve been saved. Because the Holy Spirit of God is there to remind you of that sin. David said, “My sin is ever before me.”
“Does that mean, Pastor Rogers, that if I sin, I’ll be thinking about it 24 hours a day?” Maybe not in your conscience mind, but it will be there in your subconscious. You may kick it out the front door. It’ll run around the house and come in the basement window. And it will show up as a migraine headache. It’ll show up as the inability to concentrate. It will show up as an irritable temper. It will show up as the inability to pray. It will show up in other ways.
I’m not saying that if you have a migraine that it’s because you’re a backslider. But I’m saying that some people have one because they are. Their sin is ever before them. It’s there. It saturates the mind.
You see, there’re two kinds of wounds that can come to the human psyche. One is guilt and the other is sorrow. You see, sorrow is a clean wound. And sorrow, because it is a clean wound will heal. It’s a deep wound, a raw wound. It hurts, but it will heal because it’s a clean wound.
But guilt is a dirty wound. It festers and festers and festers and it will never heal until it is cleansed.
Sin Soils the Soul, Saturates the Mind, Stings the Conscience
So what does this do? It soils the souls, it saturates the mind and here is the third thing it does, it stings the conscience. Look in Psalm 51 verse 4, “Against Thee, and Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight.”
Now here David is conscience-stricken. Here David is not crying out against the punisher, he’s crying out against the sin. He says, “O my God, I have sinned against You.” Some people say, “Well David sinned against his kingdom.” He did. Well, you say, “David sinned against his family. He did.” You say, “David sinned against his body.” He did. “David sinned against his wife.” He did. “David sinned against his children.” Of course he did.
But that’s not what bothered David primarily. David was a child of God, and David said, “O God, against Thee, and Thee only have I sinned.” And David saw sin for what it really is, an affront to a Holy God. And it was the God who loved him, the God who had redeemed him.
Now listen very carefully. If all you’re afraid of is the punishment for your sin, I doubt that you’ve been saved. If you’re a child of God, when you sin, you don’t weep primarily because you’re going to get punished; you weep primarily because you have disgraced your God. “Against Thee and Thee only have I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight.”
“O God, I’m so ashamed. I sin against You. Not only, God, did I break Your law, I broke Your heart.” You see, that’s the difference between a slave and a son. A slave, when he disobeys, fears the whip; his master’s lash. But a son, when he disobeys, if he’s a loving son, fears the father’s displeasure. And is brokenhearted that he has broken the heart of God.
Does your sin bother you that way? When you sin, do you say, “O my God, my God, I sinned against You.” It stings the conscience. Trust me. No no torture the poet’s name, can match that fierce unutterable pain he feels who day and night devoid of rest, carries his own accuser within his breast. It stings the conscience.
I’ll tell you something else it does: it, it, it saddens the heart. Look in Psalm chapter 51 verse 8, “Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which Thou hast broken may rejoice.” Look in verse 12, “Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation.”
Now he’s not asking to have his salvation restored. You can be saved and be miserable. The most miserable man on earth is not an unsaved man. Many unsaved people are having a ball. They’re living high, wide and handsome. A lot of fun. Never tell anybody you can’t have any pleasure if you’re not saved. Number one, it’s a lie. The Bible speaks of the pleasures of sin. Now the Bible says they’re for a season, but the Bible speaks of the pleasures of sin.
And David here is miserable and he’s saved. He’s a child of God. And he is praying, “God, restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation.” The most miserable man on Earth is not a lost man. The most miserable man on Earth is a saved man out of fellowship with God. Isn’t that true?
When God saves you, God doesn’t fix you where you can’t sin anymore, He just fixes you where you can’t sin and enjoy it anymore. That’s what God does. When God saves you. And so here David is praying, “Lord restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation.”
Do you want to see whether you’re backslidden or not, or whether you’re saved or lost? Let’s take the joy test. Do you have joy in your heart? Joy unspeakable and full of glory? You say, “Well now, Pastor, no I don’t have joy. Nobody’s supposed to be joyfully all the time. I’ve had some tough times.” Well, joy does best in tough times.
Friend, the Bible says in Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord,” what’s that next word? “Always.” Always. “Rejoice in the Lord always.” Now He doesn’t say be happy always. You wouldn’t want to be happy all the time. Happiness depends upon what happens. If your happ is good, you’re happy. If your happ is bad, you’re unhappy. And happ depends on happenstance.
But joy depends upon Jesus. Happiness is like a thermometer, it registers conditions. Joy is like a thermostat, it controls conditions. It’s the joy of the Lord that is your strength. Joy never changes. You’re to have joy all the time.
There’s only one thing that can take away joy. Not circumstances, it is sin. And only one kind of sin: yours. Not what somebody else does. Nobody else’s sin can take away your joy. A disobedient child cannot take away your joy. An unfaithful husband cannot take your joy. An ungodly government cannot take your joy. None of these things can take your joy because they didn’t give it to you; Jesus gives it. It is joy in the Lord.
It is not joy that removes the pain, it is joy that helps you to endure the pain. That’s the joy of the Lord. “Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation.” If the joy is not there, friend, it is because you are not abiding in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Someone has well said, “Joy is the flag that is flown from the castle of the heart when the king is in residence.”
Sin Saddens the Heart, Sickens the Body, Sours the Spirit
Now, not only that. Not only does it sadden the heart, but it also sickens the body. Look in Psalm 51 verse 8, “Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which Thou hast broken may rejoice.” Well, did God put a hammerlock on David and break his bones? Not literally. This is poetry. And David is using poetry. David is a poet. We do the same thing today. We use the same analogy today.
We say, I was just crushed. Does that mean a steam roller went over us? No, he’s talking in poetic terms. What he’s saying is, “God, You have me under extreme pressure.” “The bones which Thou hast broken,” it’s almost as if God has David in His hands and God is just squeezing the life out of David.
Sometimes people think, “Well if we sin God will just cast us off.” Oh no, He squeezes all the tighter, that’s the thing. He’s saying, “Make me to hear joy and gladness that the bones which Thou hast broken may rejoice.” There’s incredible pressure.
Now if you keep that pressure on for a long time, it’s going to make you sick. It’s going to make you sick. Did you know that the pressure of sin can sicken your body if you’re a child of God? Did you know that many children of God are sicker than they ought to be?
Now sickness is a very complicated thing and there are many reasons for sickness. But one of the reasons for sickness is sin in the life of a child of God. One of the proof texts for that is First Corinthians chapter 11 and verse 30. Paul talked about some who were irreverent at the Lord ’s Table. And he said, “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and some are dead.”
Because you have sinned irreverently at the Lord’s Table. You have taken the Holy Supper with a cavalier manner. And in a cavalier, contemptuous, careless way, and he says, “For this cause many are sick and weakly among you.” Sin causes sickness.
And I could give many, many illustrations of that. And sometimes you can get sick unto death. You say, “Pastor Rogers, if I get saved and I live in sin, will that mean I won’t go to Heaven?” Friend, it might mean you’ll go to Heaven a lot quicker than you planned to. I mean, you just might get there even sooner than you expected to get there.
“For this cause, many are weak and sickly among you and some sleep.” And the word sleep is a term that is used for the death of a child of God, not for the death of an unsaved person. And so sickens the body.
I wish I had more time to talk about that. But let’s just turn it around. If you’ve lost your joy, no wonder you might get sick. Because, “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” Proverbs 17 verse 22.
Did you know that when you are right with God you stand straighter? Did you know that when you are right with God you smile more? Did you know that when you are right with God you sleep better? Did you know that when you are right with God you digest your food better? I’m just telling you friend, that a merry heart is one of the best medicines you can take. But you can’t have that joy of the Lord if you are a backslider walking away from God.
Here is David, a child of God, and he is perfectly miserable. I’ll tell you something else it does: it sours the spirit. Look in Psalm 51 verse 10, “Create a clean heart in me, O God; and renew a right spirit.” David had a wrong spirit.
Have you ever seen a backslidden person with a sour spirit? You know I’d much rather be around a good, old fashioned, unsaved pagan than a backslidden Christian. The most censorious, cantankerous, vituperative, can’t get along with, type of individual I’ve ever known are backsliders.
Because they’re miserable on the inside and because they’re condemned they’re trying to push their misery off on everybody else. You watch a person with a sour spirit, a person with a wrong spirit, they are the most critical persons in our church. You know, they think that God gave them the gift of criticism.
Do you know what their problem is? They are backslidden. No dish on the table looks good to a person with a sour stomach. They just find fault everywhere, with everything.
The case in point: David had committed adultery and then, trying to cover it up, he committed the sin of manslaughter. Nathan the prophet came to speak to him. Read about that in Second Samuel chapter 12. He didn’t come to talk about church finance either. He came to talk about David’s sin.
He told David a story about a man who had a little pet lamb that was like his own daughter. Ate from his table. A poor man. Then he lived next door to a very rich man. This rich man had thousands of flocks and herds. And then the rich man had a stranger to stop by. And the rich man took the poor man’s lamb, killed it, cooked it and fed it to the stranger.
He said, “Now David, you’re the king. Tell us what ought to be done to the man who has done this thing.” David was livid with rage. He jumped up from his throne. I can see him as he clinches his fist, grits his teeth and says, “The man that has done that will pay four fold!”
And Nathan the prophet said, “And you are the man. You’re the man. You are the man, David. You just sentenced yourself in your own court.” It was all an analogy. The little lamb was Bathsheba. The one that David had stolen. And what had happened was this, that David was quick to judge a man that had stolen a lamb, he had stolen another man’s wife. David was quick to judge the man who had killed an animal, but he had killed a human being.
And yet, he was quick to judge somebody else. You’ll always find those who are backslidden are very careful to judge people for less sin than they have in their own lives. They’re the ones going around trying to pick specks out of other people’s eye, when they have logs in their own eye. They have a sour spirit.
Are you one of those sour-spirited people? Oh, you’ll feel so much better when you get back right with God.
Sin Seals the Lips – Stops Praise and Soulwinning
And then the last thing that sin does in the life of a child of God. It, not only does it sour his spirit, but it seals his lips. Look if you will here in verses 12 through 15, “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 shew forth Thy praise.”
Now, sin in the life of a Christian shuts his mouth, it seals his lips. David said, “When I get right, then I’ll be a soul winner. When I get right, then I’ll be a singer. When I get right, then I will praise.”
Do you know how you can tell whether or not a person is backslidden or not? When a person is backslidden, as a general rule, singing just stops. Oh he’ll sing, but it doesn’t come from his heart. Praise withers; soulwinning stops altogether. Because sin shuts his mouth.
The devil says, “Who are you to be singing, ‘What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought, since Jesus came into my heart.’ Or, Who are you to be singing, ‘What a mighty God we serve?’ Who are you to be testifying and telling somebody else they need to get saved when you are such a miserable example, and you have no joy, and you have no peace, and you don’t even have any real assurance in your own heart and in your own life.”
And the devil intimidates so many people because there’s sin in their heart and in their life. Now all of these things put together are what happens in, are things that happen in this life. And then as we’re going to show you in a later study, when you come to the judgment seat of Christ, oh what a loss of reward there will be.
But very quickly now, how do you come back? How do you come back when you get into this situation? Three very simple and wonderful things. Oh, I love this Psalm. It is so wonderful.
The very first, and they all start with the letter “c”, and I want you to jot them down. The very first thing is confidence. You must have confidence that God still loves you.
Notice how David prays, beginning in Psalm 51 verse 1, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.”
David had confidence in his God. David knew, are you listening, David knew that for a multitude of sins, there were a multitude of tender mercies. Do you see? “According unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies.”
David knew that he was a sinner. But David knew that God was full of lovingkindness. The devil will tell you, if you’ve sinned grievously, the devil will tell you that God is finished with you. The devil will tell you there’s no hope for you. The devil will tell you that God has cast you off.
But that is a lie. There’s nothing you can do that’ll make God stop loving you. Oh friend, remember that. Don’t you listen to the dirty devil. David had confidence in God and God loves you today. I don’t care what you’ve done, how many times you’ve failed, probably nobody here has committed sin in the magnitude of David. And yet David said, “O God according to the multitude of Thy tender mercies.”
Romans 5:20 says, “For great sin there is great grace.” Say, Amen! “For great sin there is great grace. For great sin there is great grace.” That is confidence.
The Way Back – Confidence, Confession, Cleansing
Now the next “c” is confession. Notice what he says in Psalm 51 verses 3 and 4, “For I acknowledge my transgressions: my sin is ever before me. Against Thee, and Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight: that Thou mightiest be justified when Thou speakest, and clear when Thou judgest.”
This is a confession. The Bible says in First John 1:9, “If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us,” hallelujah, “from all unrighteousness.”
Now, it’s not just an admission of sin. It’s a confession. He’s saying, “I’ve sinned against You.” There’s one thing that God will not accept for sin, friend, and that is an excuse and an alibi.
Now David could have said, “Well it wasn’t my fault. My wife wasn’t showing me the love I deserved.” Or he says, “It wasn’t my fault. Bathsheba was out there bathing where she shouldn’t have been bathing.” Or, “I had a weak moment. But God, you know all of us are human. I had a glandular malfunction.”
I mean he could have given all of these alibis for sin. There’s one thing that God will not accept for sin and that is an alibi. But a confession means to agree with God. And he says, “O God I am guilty. Not my brother, not my sister, but it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.”
Now it’s an honest confession. God just wants you to confess it. When we try to cover it, God uncovers it. But when we uncover it, God covers it. Now he just cleanses and forgives.
So that’s the third one. Let’s look. First of all confidence. Secondly, confession. Thirdly, cleansing.
Notice he says in Psalm 51 verse 2, “Wash me thoroughly.” Notice he says in verse 7, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” “Wash me, purge me, blot out my transgressions,” he says.
When He blots them out, that is, He just erases the record. It’s gone. It’s blotted out. It’s not there anymore. He just blots it out! It is gone! Buried in the grave of God’s forgetfulness! Never to be brought up again. If anybody ever brings it up again, it’s the devil bringing it up, or your conscience bringing it up. But God doesn’t bring it up.
He blots it out. Not only does He blot it out, but he says also, “Wash me.” Not only does He remove the penalty, friend, He removes the pollution. I mean, He gets the filth off, you’re clean. You’re clean. Whiter than snow. You’re not just patched up.
God has forgotten that sin. It is gone! First John 1 verse 9, “If we confess our sins He’s faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us, cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from what? How much sin? All, all. Don’t you let the devil say, “Yeah, but yours is a biggie. Oh, yeah, but not yours.” No! He says, all sin, all sin.
So he says, “Wash me.” That’s the pollution. He says, “Blot out.” That deals with the penalty of sin. He says, “Wash me.” That deals with the pollution of sin. And then he says, “Purge me.” That deals with the power of sin.
Not only does he take away the penalty, not only does he take away the pollution, but friend he literally purges you on the inside. Hallelujah. This is God’s triple detergent. And you don’t need to go around with a load of guilt anymore. You don’t need to go around carrying all of that condemnation that Satan has put on you anymore.
You can be as clean, wash me, and I shall be what? Whiter than snow! Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t that glorious? Hallelujah! What a great God, what a mighty God we serve!
There’s the capability of sin, there’s the consequences of sin, but thank God there is the cleansing of sin.
Restored to Joy and Service Through God’s Mercy
Let’s bow our heads in prayer. Heads are bowed, eyes are close. Father, I pray today that many who have been intimidated by Satan would come today and just come to You. And Lord come with an honest confidence, confession, and know that cleansing.
And I pray, dear God, that those who are not yet saved will come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
Now, while heads are bowed and eyes are closed. If you’re not certain that you’re saved, would you like to be saved, would you? Would you like to know that you really do have life? Jesus said, “I’ve come that you might have life.”
Could I lead you in a prayer? We’ll call this prayer the sinner’s prayer. And you can pray and accept Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. You can do it right now.
Would you pray this prayer? “Dear God, I know that You love me. Thank You for loving me. And I know that You want to save me. Jesus, You died to save me and You promised to save me if I would trust You. Jesus, I do trust You. I believe You’re the Son of God. I believe you paid for my sin with Your blood on the cross. I believe that God raised You from the dead. And now I receive You as my Lord and Savior. Forgive my sin. Cleanse me. Come into my life. Take control of my life and begin today to make me the person You want me to be. And Jesus, give me the courage to make it public. Help me never to be ashamed of You. In Your name I pray, Amen.”