"O Lord, hear my prayer, listen to my cry for mercy; in your faithfulness and righteousness come to my relief. Do not bring your servant into judgment, for no one living is righteous before you." (Psalm 143:1-2, NIV).

Psalm 143 is titled in the Septuagint (that is the Greek Translation of the Old Testament), "A psalm of David when his son Absalom was pursing him."

You may recall the story. David’s family was in turmoil as a result of his sin with Bathsheba. Now David was forgiven in God’s Government but in God’s economy there was a price to be paid (See 2 Samuel 12:1-14). I will not go into all the graphic details here, but Nathan’s words were fulfilled and what we apparently have in this Psalm is the plea of a discouraged, despondent, and dismayed David, fleeing from his own son for his life. I don’t think it could really get much worse than that. It is one thing to face critics and have enemies, it is quite another thing when those critics and enemies are members of your immediate household!
Psalm 143 is considered as the last of the Penitential Psalms (the others being 6, 32,38,51, 102, and 130). Perhaps the reason this Psalm is placed into that category is because of verse 2: "Do not bring your servant into judgment, for no one living is righteous before you."

I am always amazed that despite all the evidence to the contrary, otherwise intelligent people persist in the mistaken belief that mankind is basically good. We are not. The Bible reminds us that "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23) and "As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.’" (Romans 3:10-12, NIV).

Jill Carattini wrote, "Great thinkers from Augustine to G.K. Chesterton saw clearly that the most verifiable truth of the Christian worldview is the certainty of the depravity of humanity. It can be observed across countries and languages, at any time and within every decade, from barbaric accounts of depravity in far away places to more accepted forms of depravity close at home. We close our eyes to reality where we refuse to see the same story repeating itself again and again. We might euphemize the doctrine of original sin into neurotic myth, outdated opinion, or church propaganda, but it has not been euthanized. Observe for a short time at any playground and you will note quickly amongst even the youngest that something has gone terribly wrong. If we were to truly observe our hearts, motives, and wills, we would hardly find them good and consistent leaders to follow." (Internet Newsletter: A Slice of Infinity 12-31-08).

The truth of the matter is the keys in our pockets are a silent witness that mankind is not basically good! We lock things up precisely because we recognize man’s evil tendencies yet all the while thinking we are "basically good." On a personal note, I have to chuckle when I think of my experience in visiting people in prison. I have yet to meet a convict who said to me, "I’m a bad person." To the contrary: every convict I have talked to has said at one time or another, "I’m basically a good person inside." I have not found one yet who did not respond to me only with a blank stare when I asked, "If you are basically a good person, why are you here?"
Sadly, there are a good many Christians running around who also mistakenly think that they are basically good people. I have (theological) news for you: you are not good. That is why we need Christ in the first place! David recognized this and pleaded with God: "Do not bring your servant into judgment, for no one living is righteous before you." Paul on the other hand gloriously reminds us, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus," (Romans 8:1, NIV).

We stand righteous before God not because we are good but because He is gracious. Salvation from start to finish is God’s work in you, not your work for God. There is no room in the Christian’s life for the false pride that puffs so many of us up! It’s not me, it’s Him. All the glory goes to Him. The grace that saves us remember is undeserved favor. That right there tells me that I don’t deserve it and could never merit it. I don’t deserve it, that is why it is grace! If we believers started living with that realization true humility would immediately remove the all too common accusation that most of us are "too judgmental."

Let us realize that we too stood guilty before the throne, and what we could not do on our own, God Himself did for us, offering us forgiveness through Christ.